Case ID: us_2/html/0143-03.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SAME CAUSE.
    IN order to prove certain passengers, imported by the defendant into the State, to be convicts, and to have undergone punishment, in the Spiel-House of Hamburg, in Germany, a commission to examine witnesses in that city had been taken out. This was returned by the commissioners, containing a written report of the names of the persons confined in the Spiel-House, in 1786, and of the offences for which they had been convicted, certified by a clerk of the Chancery, to have been signed by the late directors of the Spiel-House, in his presence, and that of the commissioners. The return was objected to, and,
   By the Court:

—This is not a good execution of the commission. The testimony is not taken under oath : And, as to the paper being evidence in itself, it is not an official paper, certified by the proper officers, who had, at that time, the custody of the Spiel-House, or of the books. They stile themselves the late directors. This paper, therefore, is not admissible as evidence.