The Sun.
London, England, 1806-03-21 00:00:00

pirtzh

• The following „I;epout .canhot:fail•tO- interest out
iteaders,. as the . t!.ecision .amounts to a. new and so-
aiiirmance of t. 13.4 prii)ciple which i at . pre-
sent wariAly disputed by the United States of Ante-
rica.:-- •
.;;
- Privy Council Chamber, Marchli, 160:3.
Present—Earl F ITZWI LLI A NI, Lord .13..sielerit.
Duke pf MONTMOSE,
• • Lord AUCKLAND; - •
• • MASTER pf th',.t ItOLLS;"
Sir-WILLIAM l'aV!
•Sir WILLIAIVI SCOTT. .
Case of the William, John Trefry,
This Case, which was. an Appeal 12,- ,an American
Claimant, from a.. sentence of the Court .of. Vice-
Admiralty of Halifax, came a second.-tine'before the
Bbard on farther. proofsi. on. the 24th of last month,
when it Was fully argued by the -King's Advocaie
for the . Captor,. and, Dr. ARiIoLD ani- Mr, STE-
PHEN for the Claimant. ,

• At the close:of the argument it was
• the Court, that tlr.-.s.y had'no 'doubt what
oision ought to be, but that they Wished toi,Lteito
the various cases • that had been cited in t.l,)e
ment, 'and oh. that. account only th-2:
Cause to-stand over for judgment oil a filo:ire
Accordingly this day 'tb.c unanimous
• theit Lordships was given in • a very aUle an
-thinons.manner by Sir .WILLIAM Gr NT, the •Mcister
'ef the Rolls.

His Henotr first.briefly* stafed the. single gue.-..tion
in the cause to be; whether the. v`oyage in which tl:e
property of the claithl ent was mbal-ked -at the 611;0
of the capture y•as .a .voyagr,.. The
~caro in
question consisted of.eocoa, which
*at Laguira, a Port in the
.Spanish Province of Cl.
raccas, in South America, on account of.the
ant, in the
.same Ship in whicll it .I.vai now-..A:idp-
tured, and was bredgl";:f • to IVI.A-I.)l;.‘:heacl,i;a.,Pourief
the United-States,where it WLiS e d ,arki I<l uicd,
a bond having been, given as usual f;ir the dutics.;
but it was a few days .afterwards re-shipped in the
same bottoni, and,dispatched- on a voyage to Bilboa.
Debentures-were thereupon gratitel to the claim tit
for the amount a tt,,e. duties, a small part excepted.;
and these'Debentnres bein-r, at a subequentparip4,
given up to the;Custorif-17ouSe,..and the small. .b -
lance of duties paid. in cash, the bond &yen on the
entry from Laguira was Cancelled:,
. This, our Readers will. observe, is .the '.ortlinft-
',ty. course. of proceeding in lilce cases.; 'and-which.; 'it
is contended on the,pat t.-of America; amounts to a
.fair importation into.thet Country, so as-to justify
the subsequent trausatiEsion of the produce ofda
hostile Colony to the Mother Country, or any other
:Port in-Europe, while the contrary is maintained by
.our Prize Courts. .

The MASTER of the ROLLS did enter into'
those general principles.of- the ,did
of Nations, on.
which this 'Co'mtry asse:t,s..:i. right to preventlN'ien-
trals 'from carrying 'lrade, Of. our
Enemies in general ;. principles which have hen so
often di scusSed, and .so oftl2u,soleninly recogni.zwi by
the Lords ,Corrunlssioners. He only observed, ;hat
by the uniform. Sense of the Board, whatever branch
of that trade was not allowed. .by His Majesty's NVar
Instruelions, was unlaw":al; and. that therefore the
only question for their -Lordships in 'this case was,
Whether the voyage in. qucStion was flirty
the licence of the Royal Insuutlion which applied
'to it ?

4 His
ffonour then proceeded to expose; in a strain
of the dearest and most 'conclusive reasoning,' the
_absurdity of regarding the deviation from ,the direa
course, of the intended voyage, sto) ping at an, Ame-
rican Port, the landing and re-shipping the cargo,
and the formal proceedings at the' Custom-house
there, as legalizing a volynge which would otherwiw
have been nfilay.vtui under the Royal Instruaion,
when those ads are discovered to have'heen morel t
ostensible, and -concerted for the very purpose of
evading the rule of law., •

The true intention of the parties, he observed,
might pot, in general, be easily discovered, because
the same exterior circumstances naturally accompa-
nied an evasive and genuine importation. • But when
an intent merely to .give a false appearance to th... 1
transaction Was discovered, it ,was impossible for the
Court to give effe& tp such an intention, by bolding
thatthe old voyage was discontinued, and that a ne%r.
ope had commenced, ,without- admitting that the
legal charaEter of a .transaCtion was to be deter-
Mined, not by its real nature, but .by the naru
which the parties chose to give it, and the false co-
lours which they made it to wear. .<

The dire& voyage from the Spanish Colony tei
Spain was clearly -prohibitedbut when Colonial
produce, shipped in the former, was designed 'to. be
carried in the same bottom to the latter, a deviltion
from the dire& course of the voyage, contrived for
the Mere purpose of giving a, new name and new
appearance to the transaction, could not alte'r .the.
case. It was still in substance and effeta a dire& and
single voyage ; and in the cwstruaion of plain com-
mon sense it was impossible to view the restric-
tion in a different way.

(To be conthard.,l

After illustrating the point much at largo, his
Honour adverted to the circumstance of paying or,'
securing duties, which has been much insisted on
by the Merchants of America as' legalizing these,
voyages according to the former judgments of out
own Prize Tribunals.. In this rasped, he said, the
Lords Commissioners. had been alledged to have.
departed 'in a late case,- that of the Essex,
Orme, Master; from some rule they had previously
laid down. But,,in faa, the paYment of duties had
never been regarded by them in any other light
than as circumstantial evidence of,lro7ta Jicks in the
importation into Ainerica. It had been supposed
that large import duties 'were Vaid in that
Country ;- and if sow to be sure it furnished a strong
indication of a design in the paity paying them, to
ma)te real, and not merely an ostensible importa;-
tion. So the Court of Admiralty had reasonably
thought in the case of the folly, Lasky, Master, the
first case on this sUbjeal; but the Learned *Judge of
that Court had anxiously guarded in his judgment.
against the notion that this; or any ether 'circum
stance, amounted to conclusive evidonce that ti:e iro-
portation was genuine, or that the payment ofduit:s
of itself Ipivelegality to the wade.