at Calcutta had not jurisdiction to try the case and that the trial was a nullity.

"It further appears from the report of the government of India that, after the trial, the consul-general of the United States applied for the extradition of the prisoner, and was informed that the government of India were unable to order the surrender of a person on a charge in respect of which he had been already tried and convicted by a competent British court.

"I have the honor to request that you will express to your Government the regret of Her Majesty's Government that the action of the authorities at Calcutta, in the case of John Anderson, should have been governed by a view of the law which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, can not be supported, and I trust that you will convey to them the assurance that Mr. Evarts has justly attributed this incident to a misconception and not to any design to question the jurisdiction of the United States in this or any similar case."

Earl Granville, Sec. for For. Aff., to Mr. Lowell, min. to England, June 8, 1880, For. Rel. 1880, 481.

The Government of Chili has no jurisdiction over a merchant vessel of the United States on the high seas so as to enable it to proceed against that vessel or its officers, when in a Chilian port, for cruelty on the high seas to a Chilian subject on board that vessel.

Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Logan, Oct. 15, 1883, MS. Inst.
Chile, XVII. 113.

The courts of the United States have no jurisdiction to redress any supposed torts committed on the high seas upon the property of its citizens by a cruiser regularly commissioned by a foreign and friendly power, except where such cruiser has been fitted out in violation of its neutrality. The courts of the captors are open for redress, and an injured neutral may there obtain indemnity for a wanton or illicit capture. Nor is the jurisdiction of the neutral court enlarged by the fact that the corpus no longer continues under the control of the capturing power. The Estrella, 4 Wheat., 298.

2. Halleck's Int. Law, 3rd ed., by Baker, II. 173–174.

Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested Piracy. and our harbors watched by private armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured in the very entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own also. They

have carried them off under pretense of legal adjudication, but not daring to approach a court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way, or in obscure places where no evidence could arise against them; maltreated the crews, and abandoned them in boats in open sea or on desert shores, without food or covering. These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of their sovereigns, I found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering on our coast within the limits of the Gulf Stream, and to bring the offenders in for trial as pirates.”

President Jefferson, annual message, 1805.

Murder or robbery committed on the high seas may be cognizable by the courts of the United States, though committed on board of a vessel not belonging to citizens of the United States, if she had no national character, but was held and possessed by pirates or persons not lawfully sailing under the flag of any foreign nation.

United States v. Holmes, 5 Wheaton, 412.

This rule is peculiar to the offence of piracy by law of nations, which is justiciable in the courts of any country.

waters.

"It is natural to consider the vessels of a nation as parts of its territory, though at sea, as the state retains its jurisdicActs in foreign tion over them; and, according to the commonly received custom, this jurisdiction is preserved over the vessels even in parts of the sea subject to a foreign dominion. This is the doctrine of the law of nations, clearly laid down by writers of received authority, and entirely conformable, as it is supposed, with the practice of modern nations. If a murder be committed on board of an American vessel by one of the crew upon another or upon a passenger, or by a passenger on one of the crew or another passenger, while such vessel is lying in a port within the jurisdiction of a foreign state or sovereignty, the offence is cognizable and punishable by the proper court of the United States in the same manner as if such offence had been committed on board the vessel on the high seas. The law of England is supposed to be the same. It is true that the jurisdiction of a nation over a vessel belonging to it, while lying in the port of another, is not necessarily wholly exclusive. We do not so consider or so assert it. For any unlawful acts done by her while thus lying in port, and for all contracts entered into while there, by her masters or owners, she and they must, doubtless, be answerable to the laws of the place. Nor, if her master or crew, while on board in such port, break the peace of the community by the commission of crimes, can exemption be claimed for them. But, nevertheless, the law of nations, as I have stated it,

and the statutes of governments founded on that law, as I have referred to them, show that enlightened nations, in modern times, do clearly hold that the jurisdiction and laws of a nation accompany her ships not only over the high seas, but into ports and harbors, or wheresoever else they may be water-borne, for the general purpose of governing and regulating the rights, duties, and obligations of those on board thereof, and that, to the extent of the exercise of this jurisdiction, they are considered as parts of the territory of the nation herself."

Mr. Webster, Sec. of State, to Lord Ashburton, British min., Aug. 1, 1842, Webster's Works, VI. 306-307, cited in United States v. Rodgers (1893), 150 U. S. 249, 264.

In 1868 James Anderson, a citizen of the United States, was indicted for murder committed on board a British vessel. The vessel, when the offense was committed, was 45 miles up the river Garonne, in France, in the body of the country, though within the ebb and flow of the tide. The prisoner was convicted in the central criminal court of London of manslaughter. The vessel, though flying the British flag, belonged to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and it was contended that as the offence was committed in France and the vessel was a colonial vessel and the prisoner an American citizen the court had no jurisdiction to try him. It was held that he was properly convicted.

Reg. v. Anderson (1868), 11 Cox C. C. 198. It was admitted by the judges that the French courts had a concurrent jurisdiction which they might have exercised had they claimed it.

By section 5346, Revised Statutes of the United States, it is provided that "every person who, upon the high seas, or in any arm of the sea, or in any river, haven, creek, basin, or bay, within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States, and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, on board any vessel belonging in whole or in part to the United States, or any citizen thereof, with a dangerous weapon, or with intent to perpetrate any felony, commits an assault on another shall be punished by a fine of not more than three thousand dollars and by imprisonment at hard labor not more than three years.” Under this section the courts of the United States have jurisdiction to try a person for an assault, with a dangerous weapon, committed on a vessel belonging to a citizen of the United States, when such vessel is in the Detroit River, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, and within the territorial limits of the Dominion of Canada.

United States v. Rodgers (1893), 150 U. S. 249, 252, 266. An indictment for murder which charges that the offence was committed on an American vessel on the high seas, within the jurisdiction of the court and within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United

States, sufficiently avers the locality of the offence. (St. Clair v.
United States (1894), 154 U. S. 134.)

In United States v. Rodgers, supra, the court disapproved People r.
Tyler, 7 Mich. 161. See United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76;
Thomas v. Lane, 2 Sumn. 1; United States v. Coombs, 12 Pet. 72.

A defendant was indicted in the circuit court of the United States
at Philadelphia for murder. It appeared that he was mate of the
American brig Rover; that while the brig lay at Cape François he
dealt the master a blow with a piece of wood, and that the master,
being taken on shore, died there the next day. It was contended
that in order to give the court jurisdiction under the eighth section
of the crimes act both the death and the blow must occur on the high

seas.

Peters, J., said that both the stroke and the consequent death must
happen on the high seas.

Mr. Justice Washington took the same view.

United States v. McGill (1806), 4 Dallas, 426.

Where a gun was fired from an American ship lying in a harbor of
one of the Society Islands, killing a person on board a schooner be-
longing to the natives in the harbor, it was held by Judge Story that
the act was, in contemplation of law, committed on board the foreign
schooner where the shot took effect, and that jurisdiction of the offense
belonged to the foreign government and not to the courts of the
United States. Where a prisoner under such circumstances was
sent home for trial, it was held that the court had no jurisdiction.

United States v. Davis, 2 Sumner, 482.

Civil liabilities on
American vessels.

An action for damages was brought for the negligent killing of a
person on a vessel hailing from and registered in a
port of the State of New York and owned by citi-
zens thereof. The action was brought in a court of
the State of New York, and in order to maintain it it was necessary
to show that the statute of the State, by which such a right of action
was given, was operative on board the vessel on the high seas.
It was
admitted that, if the question had arisen under the laws of the
United States, the principle that a ship on the high seas is con-
structively a part of the territory of the nation to which she belongs
would be applicable; but it was denied that the State of New York
could be regarded as a sovereignty whose laws followed her till she
came within the jurisdiction of another government. The court
said that, in respect of crimes committed on the high seas, the power
to provide for their punishment had been delegated to the Federal
Government, so that State laws could not be applicable to them; but,

on the strength of Crapo v. Kelly, 16 Wall. 610, the court held that "civil rights of action for matters occurring at sea on board of a vessel belonging to one of the States of the Union must depend upon the laws of that State, unless they arise out of some matter over which jurisdiction has been vested in and exercised by the Government of the United States, or over which the State has transferred its rights of sovereignty to the United States; and that to this extent the vessel must be regarded as part of the territory of the State, while in respect to her relations with foreign governments, crimes committed on board of her, and all other matters over which jurisdiction is vested in the Federal Government, she must be regarded as part of the territory of the United States and subject to the laws thereof. ... The jurisdiction of the States and of the United States in the matter of personal torts committed at sea are concurrent, though remedies by proceedings in rem can be administered only by the courts of admiralty of the United States. The field of legislation in respect to cases like the present one has not been occupied by the General Government and is therefore open to the States."

McDonald . Mallory (1879), 77 N. Y. 546. See 1 Beale's Cases on the
Conflict of Laws, 51.

In the case of Kelly v. Crapo, 16 Wall. 610, reversing Kelly v. Crapo, 45
N. Y. 86, a citizen of Massachusetts owning a ship which was reg-
istered in Massachusetts, but which was at the time on the high
seas, was adjudged insolvent in that State and all his property was
judicially transferred to an assignee in insolvency. It was held
that the ship therefore could not be attached in New York in a suit
subsequently brought against the insolvent by a New York creditor.
See Dicey on the Conflict of Laws, Moore's American Notes, 357.

Guano islands.

By sec. 5576, R. S., all acts done, and offenses or crimes committed," on a guano island appertaining to the United States, or in the waters adjacent thereto, are "deemed committed on the high seas, on board a merchant-ship or vessel belonging to the United States," and are punishable “according to the laws of the United States relating to such ships or vessels and offences on the high seas." The offense may be tried, under sec. 730, R. S., in the "district where the offender is found, or into which he is first brought."

Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 11 S. Ct. 80; Smith v. United
States, 137 U. S. 224, 11 S. Ct. 88; Key v. United States, ibid.

O