Court Opinion

ID: 85112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 15:59:35+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:24.277875
License: Public Domain

13 U.S. 191 (1815)
9 Cranch 191
THIRTY HOGSHEADS OF SUGAR, (Adrian B. Bentzon, Claimant,)
v.
BOYLE AND OTHERS, Being the officers and crew of the privateer Comet.
Supreme Court of United States.
March 3, 1815.
March 4, 1815.
Absent... . TODD. J.
HARPER, for the Appellant.
PINKNEY, contra.
*195 MARSHALL, Ch. J. delivered the opinion of the Court as follows:
The island of Santa Cruz, belonging to the kingdom of Denmark, was subdued, during the late war, by the arms of his Britannic majesty. Adrian Benjamin Bentzon, an officer of the Danish government, and a proprietor of land therein, withdrew from the island on its surrender, and has since resided in Denmark. The property of the inhabitants being secured to them, he still retained his estate in the island under the management of an agent, who shipped thirty hogsheads of sugar, the produce of that estate, on board a British ship, to a commercial house in London, on account and risk of the said A.B. Bentzon. On her passage, she was captured by the American privateer, the Comet, and brought into Baltimore, where the vessel and cargo were libelled as enemy property. A claim for these sugars was put in by Bentzon; but they were condemned with the rest of the cargo; and the sentence was affirmed in the Circuit Court. The Claimant then appealed to this Court.
Some doubt has been suggested whether Santa Cruz, while in the possession of Great Britain, could properly be considered as a British island. But for this doubt there can be no foundation. Although acquisitions made during war are not considered as permanent until confirmed by treaty, yet to every commercial and belligerent purpose, they are considered as a part of the domain of the conqueror, so long as he retains the possession and government of them. The island of Santa Cruz, after its capitulation, remained a British island until it was restored to Denmark.
Must the produce of a plantation in that island, shipped by `the proprietor himself, who is a Dane residing in Denmark, be considered as British, and therefore enemy property?
*196 In arguing this question, the counsel for the Claimants has made two points.
1. That this case does not come within the rule applicable to shipments from an enemy country, even as laid down in the British Courts of admiralty.
2. That the rule has not been rightly laid down in those Courts, and consequently will not be adopted in this.
1. Does the rule laid down in the British Courts of admiralty embrace this case?
It appears to the Court that the case of the Phnix is precisely in point. In that case a vessel was captured in a voyage from Surinam to Holland, and a part of the cargo was claimed by persons residing in Germany, then a neutral country, as the produce of their estates in Surinam.
The counsel for the captors considered the law of the case as entirely settled. The counsel for the Claimants did not controvert this position. They admitted it; but endeavored to extricate their case from the general principle by giving it the protection of the treaty of Amiens. In pronouncing his opinion, sir William Scott lays down the general rule thus: "Certainly "nothing can be more decided and fixed, as the principle "of this Court and of the Supreme Court, upon "very solemn arguments, than that the possession of "the soil does impress upon the owner the character of "the country, as far as the produce of that plantation "is concerned, in its transportation to any other country, "whatever the local residence of the owner may "be. This has been so repeatedly decided, both in this "and the superior Court, that it is no longer open to "discussion. No question can be made on the point of "law, at this day."
Afterwards, in the case of the Vrow Anna Catharina, sir William Scott lays down the rule, and states its reason. "It cannot be doubted," he says, "that there are transactions so radically and fundamentally national as to impress the national character, independent of peace or war, and the local residence of the parties. The *197 produce of a person's own plantation in the colony of the enemy, though shipped in time of peace, is liable to be considered as the property of the enemy, by reason that the proprietor has incorporated himself with the permanent interests of the nation as a holder of the soil, and is to be taken as a part of that country, in that particular transaction, independent of his own personal residence and occupation."
This rule laid down with so much precision, does not, it is contended, embrace Mr. Bentzon's claim, because he has not "incorporated himself with the permanent "interests of the nation." He acquired the property while Santa Cruz was a Danish colony, and he withdrew from the island when it became British.
This distinction does not appear to the Court to be a sound one. The identification of the national character of the owner with that of the soil, in the particular transaction, is not placed on the dispositions with which he acquires the soil, or on his general character. The acquisition of land in Santa Cruz binds him, so far as respects that land, to the fate of Santa Cruz, whatever its destiny may be. While that island belonged to Denmark, the produce of the soil, while unsold, was, according to this rule, Danish property, whatever might be the general character of the particular proprietor. When the island became British, the soil and its produce, while that produce remained unsold, were British.
The general commercial or political character of Mr. Bentzon could not, according to this rule, affect this particular transaction. Although incorporated, so far as respects his general character, with the permanent interests of Denmark, he was incorporated, so far as respected his plantation in Santa Cruz, with the permanent interests of Santa Cruz, which was, at that time, British; and though as a Dane, he was at war with Great Britain, and an enemy, yet, as a proprietor of land in Santa Cruz, he was no enemy: he could ship his produce to Great Britain in perfect safety.
The case is certainly within the rule as laid down in the British Courts. The next enquiry is: how far will that rule be adopted in this country?
*198 The law of nations is the great source from which we derive those rules, respecting belligerent and neutral rights, which are recognized by all civilized and commercial states throughout Europe and America. This law is in part unwritten, and in part conventional. To ascertain that which is unwritten, we resort to the great principles of reason and justice: but, as these principles will be differently understood by different nations under different circumstances, we consider them as being, in some degree, fixed and rendered stable by a series of judicial decisions. The decisions of the Courts of every country, so far as they are founded upon a law common to every country, will be received, not as authority, but with respect. The decisions of the Courts of every country show how the law of nations, in the given case, is understood in that country, and will be considered in adopting the rule which is to prevail in this.
Without taking a comparative view of the justice or fairness of the rules established in the British Courts, and of those established in the Courts of other nations, there are circumstances not to be excluded from consideration, which give to those rules a claim to our attention that we cannot entirely disregard. The United States having, at one time, formed a component part of the British empire, their prize law was our prize law. When we separated, it continued to be our prize law, so far as it was adapted to our circumstances and was not varied by the power which was capable of changing it.
It will not be advanced, in consequence of this former relation between the two countries, that any obvious misconstruction of public law made by the British Courts, will be considered as forming a rule for the American Courts, or that any recent rule of the British Courts is entitled to more respect than the recent rules of other countries. But a case professing to be decided on ancient principles will not be entirely disregarded, unless it be very unreasonable, or be founded on a construction rejected by other nations.
The rule laid down in the Phnix is said to be a recent rule, because a case solemnly decided before the lords commissioners in 1783, is quoted in the margin *199 as its authority. But that case is not suggested to have been determined contrary to former practice or former opinions. Nor do we perceive any reason for supposing it to be contrary to the rule of other nations in a similar case.
The opinion that ownership of the soil does, in some degree, connect the owner with the property, so far as respects that soil, is an opinion which certainly prevails very extensively. It is not an unreasonable opinion. Personal property may follow the person any where; and its character, if found on the ocean, may depend on the domicil of the owner. But land is fixed. Wherever the owner may reside, that land is hostile or friendly according to the condition of the country in which it is placed. It is no extravagant perversion of principle, nor is it a violent offence to the course of human opinion to say that the proprietor, so far as respects his interest in this land, partakes of its character; and that the produce, while the owner remains unchanged, is subject to the same disabilities. In condemning the sugars of Mr. Bentzon as enemy property, this Court is of opinion that there was no error, and the sentence is affirmed with costs.