COURT OF ADMIRALTY.
There were seven prize cases introduced into the court of admiralty at Monterey, on which condemnation and sale of the property libelled ensued. They were all clearly cases of legal capture, and came under the well-established rule of international law, that the hostile character attaches to the commerce of the neutral domiciled in the enemy’s country. This rule is enforced by every consideration of sound policy and national justice. If the flag of the neutral can protect the property over which it waves, the entire commerce of the belligerent might assume this neutral garb, and be as safe in time of war as peace. To prevent such an abuse, the comity of nations has conceded the general principle, that all commerce flowing to or emanating from a mercantile house, established in the enemy’s country, shall be deemed hostile, and be held liable to seizure.
A much more difficult question arose connected with the competency of the court. Its organization arose out of the exigences of war; the alternative lay between a recognition of its jurisdiction, and the extreme right of the belligerent to burn and sink his captures. Congress, in a declaration of war, virtually invests the executive with authority to prosecute it, and secure the ends for which it has been waged. He is necessarily entrusted with extraordinary discretion and corresponding powers; when, in the due prosecution of these measures, he finds himself borne beyond their statutory provisions, and surrounded by exigences, lying at the time perhaps beyond the purview of legislative enactment, he must either forego the objects which animated the acts of the national legislature, or temporarily assume the responsibility which the crisis demands. He must authorize the maintenance of civil government in territories acquired by our arms, and judicial proceedings in cases of capture on the high seas, which cannot be brought within the jurisdiction of our established courts.
Nor is there any thing in such judicial proceedings which trenches upon the laws of nations; these laws never assume the right to define the powers vested in the executive of a realm. They claim no authority to bring into court the constitutional prerogatives of a prince or of the president of a republic; these are questions which appertain to the forms of government where the acts originate, where the power is exercised, and which must be disposed of as the wisdom of the nation may deem proper. It is enough that national law allows the captor at his peril to burn or sink his prize. Any executive measure to prevent such a precipitate result, and to subject the legality of the capture to the forms of a judicial investigation, is in accordance with every dictate of moral justice, and that strong sense of right which binds every civilized nation in a period of war as well as peace. Nor can the captor, from a want of jurisdiction in the court that determines his case, lose his prize. All the claimant can do is to require him to appear before a court of competent authority, where the case must be examined and decided de novo on its merits. This great principle in maritime jurisprudence has been recognized and confirmed in the decision of the High Court of Admiralty in England. Half a century has rolled over that decision, but its authoritative force remains firm and unshaken as the base of the sea-girt isle.
It devolved on the court at Monterey not only to determine the prize cases submitted, but to assume an onerous responsibility in the disposal of the property libelled and condemned. The cargo of one of these prizes consisted of a large amount of cotton, paper, and iron, destined to a Mexican market, and for which there was no adequate demand in California. The highest cash bid that could be procured at a sale duly notified, was $34,000. To this bid the property must be knocked down, or surrendered to a credit bid of $60,000, involving conditions for the benefit of the purchaser wholly inadmissible in law. In this perplexity I bid the ship and cargo in; placed a faithful, competent agent and crew on board, and sent the whole to Mazatlan, which had become a port of entry. The result was, that after discharging all claims existing against the property, I paid over to the Secretary of the Navy, as the net proceeds of the sales, the sum of $68,000, and stand credited with that amount on the books of the department. But this is rather a matter of personal service than a topic of public interest; it is, however, connected with official duty, and exhibits one of the many forms in which private responsibility may be tasked in saving from sacrifice property confided to its care. A failure in such cases often brings ruin; and even success may be obliged to seek its meagre remuneration through the slow forms of legislative relief.