of every nation and on the waters of every sea, it speaks in the language of invitation, to the oppressed of every clime, to place themselves under its ægis, with a pledge of its unfailing protection.

These men who are the complainants in the cases now before us, without waiting for the slow process of naturalization, and, as we may reasonably suppose, for the want of the means for reaching our shores, embarked under our flag, some of them in the ordinary pursuits of commercial enterprise, others in the danger and privations of whale-fishing. They fell a prey to the daring adventurers of the rebel cruisers.

In the discharge of its duty to those entitled to its protection our country and Government chose to hold responsible the mightiest power on the globe for its neglect to enforce its obligations of neutrality at a time when the integrity of the nation was in hazard.

As the result of an arbitration, involving the greatest triumph that peace ever obtained over war, the British government paid over the money which it is made the duty of this court to distribute, on certain conditions and limitations, among those who suffered wrong from the default of the British government to comply with her obligations as a neutral. According to the provisions of the law under which this court exists we have no right to discriminate among those who were entitled to our protection in the premises. The public law of Christendom, and the municipal law of the land, declare that foreigners, whether domiciled or temporarily sojourning on our soil, or whether on the decks of our ships, trusting to the security of our flag upon the high seas, are equally entitled to our protection against wrong from any foreign power, and equally entitled to sue for their rights in our courts. Therefore, on the ground of abstract justice and propriety, and upon the ground of legal right, we decide that foreigners, entitled to the protection of our flag in the premises, whether naturalized or not, have a right to share in the distribution of this fund.

In case No. 118, William Gordon vs. The United States, and in case No. 233, William G. Lord and Alexander Munn vs. The United States, we frankly admit we have not been free from some difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. The complainants in both these cases were subjects of Great Britain, not naturalized in the United States at the time of their alleged losses.

Their cases present considerations different from those offered in Nos. 91, 92, 237, and 246, where the complainants were subjects of Portugal at the time of their alleged losses. So far as the right to the protection of our laws and of our flag is concerned, the complainants Gordon and Munn had a right to such protection, as against other nations than their own. And if the conflict had been directly between Great Britain and the United States, and there had been an intent on the part of Great Britain to harm or in any way to wrong them while under our protection, all the authorities would go to prove that our Government would be bound to defend and protect them in their rights, even against their own government. Our complaint against Great Britain was not that she had directly or intentionally wronged our Government or its citizens, but that wrong had been done through her neglect to observe her neutral obligations.

In the distribution of this fund the measure and scope of our powers must be sought for in the act of Congress creating this court. While the proceedings at Geneva, and the negotiations which led to the Geneva arbitration, are not positively of any binding force or authority for our guidance, yet, as parts of the res gesta, they are useful in enabling us to judge of the motives and influences which operated on the arbi

trators, and of the ends and objects of their award. In cases of doubt they are valuable in aiding us to arrive at a proper construction of the act of Congress which prescribes our duties.

While Great Britain admitted that she has been negligent of her duty, she never did admit that she had committed a wrong against our Government or its citizens under the laws of nations. Those representing her interest, as appears from the British counter case, contended that her neglect was in not rigidly enforcing her own municipal laws for securing neutrality. To the charge, among other causes of complaint on the part of those representing the United States, that she had failed to enforce her own municipal regulations, her reply was that that was a matter with which we had no concern; and that it was a question between her and her own people, with which we had nothing to do. While, as before said, these preliminary discussions and negotiations are of no binding authority upon this court, yet does not national courtesy and good faith require of us to suppose that Congress, in creating this court, never intended we should distribute this fund other than for the purposes for which Great Britain supposed she was paying it ? For instance, suppose Congress had chosen to keep half the fund and cover it into the Treasury of the nation; or had directed this court to distribute it among those whose commercial interests had been injured by the terror and alarm caused by the insurgent cruisers, or among those who had suffered loss by the depredations of rebel cruisers, other than the Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah. In such cases, would not Great Britain have had cause to complain that she had been misled, overreached, deceived? Would our Government have been acting in good faith in making such disposition of this fund?

If Great Britain supposed, as seems to have been the case, that in paying this money it was to indemnify those who had been injured by her failure to execute her own municipal laws, would she not regard any action on our own part in indemnifying her own subjects for her neglect as inconsistent with the objects and purposes for which she agreed to the arbitration in the first place, and to the payment of the money in the second place? And while we might be bound to indemnify a British subject entitled to our protection who had suffered a direct positive wrong from his own government, are we bound to indemnify him for a loss consequent upon the failure of his government to do her duty as to the conduct of her own subjects? Suppose it had been proposed at Geneva to hold the British government responsible for losses sustained by her own subjects because of failure to execute her own laws, would she not have promptly replied, "That is my own affair; I am fully competent to take care of my own subjects. Whilst you may hold me accountable for a direct injury done even to my own subjects while under your protection, you have no right to hold me accountable for a wrong done to myself or to my own subjects in a failure to execute my own municipal law."

So far as the proceedings at Geneva can throw any light on the subject, there is but one case mentioned by which we are enabled to judge as to how the claims of British subjects for damage done by the insurgent cruisers were regarded, and that case is very significant as far as it goes. We allude to the case of John Burns. This case on its first examination seems to have been summarily rejected, or rather refused consideration. John Burns was a British subject, resident in Manchester, England. His claim was on behalf of his son, who, it seems, had entered as a seaman on board the Lafayette, a United States ship captured by the rebel cruiser Alabama. Although it does not clearly ap

pear, yet the presumption is that John Burns presented his claim as heirat-law of his son. The record does not state whether the son had been naturalized in the United States or not. But the concise statement touching the status of the claimant, as given in the report of a British committee appointed by the British board of trade, is as follows: "As regards the claim by John Burns for his deceased son, Joseph Burns, it will be enough to observe in the first place that it is apparently advanced by a British subject." (Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, vol. 3, page 316.)

To take the most liberal view of the case of British subjects sailing under our flag-as it is a matter of great doubt whether, in the cases alluded to, a British subject can be regarded in the same light as a foreigner of some other nation entitled to our protection "in the premises"-and as the only case reported of a British subject presenting a claim at Geneva would seem to militate against such construction; and as it is much safer for a court of limited jurisdiction to keep within the limit of its powers rather than to run the risk of exceeding them

We therefore decide that while foreigners entitled to our protection in the premises, other than subjects of Great Britain, are entitled to participate in the distribution of this fund, and to sue in this court, we cannot see that British subjects are so entitled.

In cases Nos. 91, 92, 237, and 246 the demurrers are overruled, and in cases 118 and 233 the demurrers are sustained.

ANN ELIZA GANNETT, OF MASSACHUSETTS, administratrix of the estate of Abraham Osborn, deceased, et al.,

vs.

THE UNITED STATES.

No. 184.

1. All claims for damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruisers Alabama, Florida, and their tenders, and all claims for damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruiser Shenandoah, after her departure from Melbourne on the 18th day of February, A. D. 1865, must directly result from damage caused by said cruisers.

2. No claim for "prospective profits" can be admitted or allowed under the act of Congress of June 23, 1874, creating the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims.

The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Messrs. Corwine and Manning for the complainant.

Mr. J A. J. Creswell for the respondents.

WELLS, presiding judge, delivered the opinion of the court:
Petition embracing alleged facts as follows:

To the honorable judges of the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims: 1st. Your petitioner, Ann Eliza Ganuett, administratrix of the estate of Abraham Osborn, deceased, for herself and the other parties whose names are set forth in the caption and made part hereof, respectfully represents that said Abraham Osborn, together with said parties, was the owner of the whale-ship Splendid on the 11th day of August, 1862, which was fitted out and fully equipped at Edgartown, Dukes County, State of Massachusetts, to pursue the whale-fishing in the Atlantic Ocean for a voyage of thirty months, with a full complement of officers and crew; that said ship was owned at Edgartown; that she was driven out of said Atlantic Ocean by the rebel cruiser Alabama while engaged in pursuing her voyage and business on those fishing-grounds, and after obtaining supplies at the port of Saint Cath

erines she proceeded to the Arctic Ocean and the Anadir Sea; that while so engaged she was pursued by the rebel cruiser Alabama, with the purpose of capturing and destroying her, and was compelled to leave said fishing-ground, and then and there and thereafter prevented by said rebel cruiser from returning to said fishing ground for a period of more than two months; that when so compelled to leave, the preparations which had been made at that time, and the work that had already been done, promised a most successful season's catch; that the unlaw ful act of the Alabama caused injury to the property and interests of petitioners," directly resulting from damage caused by" said cruiser, in this, that it broke up the season's catch, destroyed the enterprise, and put an end to the voyage, to the great pecuniary damage and serious material injury of your petitioner, whereby the said owners lost their entire outfits, refits, and investment, except the ship itself, and that was greatly deteriorated in value, requiring large outlays to fit it for another season's voyage; that the master of said ship was compelled to escape with his said ship from the pursuit of said rebel cruiser, or otherwise have his said ship burned, as was the fact with many whalers at that time, being on the same cruising-ground.

And petitioner avers and states that it cost the owners of the Splendid, for the preparation of said voyage, for the outfit of said vessel, &c., the sum of $50,000.

That that season's catch, covering a period of about one year, broken up by this act of said rebel cruiser, was well worth, and would have realized the owners of said ship, the sum of $50,000; which loss wholly and directly resulted from the damage caused by said rebel cruiser, in manner and under the circumstances aforesaid.

*

To which the United States interposes a demurrer, as follows:

1. Because the said claim of said complainant is not admissible under the provisions of the law creating this court.

2. Because the said claim is not a claim directly resulting from damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruisers Alabama, Florida, and their tenders, or any of them, nor one directly resulting from damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruiser Shenandoah, after her departure from Melbourne on the 18th February, 1865.

3. Because the said claim is based upon unearned freights, gross freights, prospective profits, freights, gains, and advantages.

4. Because the Government of the United States is not bound to afford a convoy to every ship upon the high seas, and cannot be held responsible for unlawful acts perpetrated upon citizens of the United States by hostile and belligerent cruisers.

5. Because the said claim is not admissible under well-established principles of mercantile law.

Section 11 of the act of Congress, approved June 23, A. D. 1874, under which this court was organized, would seem to dispose of this case; in fact, two words of this section, if the exact meaning of the same could be clearly reached, would remove a difficulty which has involved lengthened discussion, and presented an amount of legal learning very interesting to the court and creditable to the gentlemen engaged in the case. The two words "directly resulting," occurring in the third line of section 11, in almost any other connection, would seem to have by themselves a significance that could not be misinterpreted; the words in their connection in this section of the law, it seems to the court, are not used loosely, as though Congress, in the hurry and confusion of its session

about to close, had not been carefully critical in expressing the intent of the law-making power. Section 11 reads as follows: "That it shall be the duty of said court to receive and examine all claims admissible under this act that may be presented to it, directly resulting from damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruisers Alabama, Florida, and their tenders, and also all claims admissible under this act directly resulting from damage caused by the so-called insurgent cruiser Shenandoah," &c. Now, if Congress had intended such construction of this section as has been insisted upon by claimant in this case, why was the word "directly" used at all? The case of claimant might possibly have been covered by the language of this section if it had read, "That it shall be the duty of said court to receive and examine all claims admissible under this act that may be presented to it, resulting from damage caused," &c., leaving out the word "directly," for the term "resulting from" implies a direct or indirect result, a result of the hour, or a result after months or years, a result now and here, or a result hereafter; not so with the phrase "directly resulting;" this fairly implies an immediate consequence, a prompt following after an act now and here done and performed.

It is hardly possible for this court to fail to distinguish the difference in two cases, the one where a vessel is captured by one of these insurgent cruisers, the immediate announcement that she is a prize, her officers and men in irons transferred at once to the confederate vessel, the captured vessel in flames, and all this within an hour; the other case, a vessel driven from her fishing-ground, and a conclusion reached after a lapse of two months or more, which may be correct or incorrect, that her prospects or season's catch is broken up, that her voyage, intended for years, is at an end, except to return to her port of departure. In the one case, all is certainty, a "direct result; " the captured vessel in flames immediately after her surrender, and sure to be totally consumed, except so much of the same as may be beneath the ocean's surface; and in the other case, a something to occur in the future, and possibly to be qualified as to loss or no loss by the timidity or cowardice of a commanding officer, or the destruction of a vessel by fire, collision, or storm. The construction placed by this court on the words "directly resulting" does not imply that we entertain the idea that Congress acted wisely or unwisely in the use of the word "directly" as it occurs in section 11; the court has nothing to do with the action of Congress in this respect; it is our duty to construe the law as we find it, and to give, as we may have the ability, a reasonable construction to every part of section 11, as it comes to our hands from the law-making power.

In giving an opinion as to the construction of section 11 and other portions of the act of June 23, A. D. 1874, the court has carefully examined the authorities cited from the Congressional Record, vol. 2, part 6; "The Treaty of Washington, by Cushing," pages 164, 165, and 166, and the various decisions of the courts affecting the construction of the act of June 23, 1874.

If the claimant in this case can substantiate what she alleges as fact in her petition, it may be a proper subject for congressional action in the future so to legislate as to bring such case within the purview of the law, and thus give to her and others the benefit of a portion of the fund which Great Britain, in the furtherance of justice, has paid the United States as compensation for an omitted national duty. Congressional legislation must give the relief, if any is to be had. This court is without the power, much as its sympathy might be enlisted for the claimant, to give her any relief.