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The quotations from Pothier, Laurent, and from Demolombe require but two comments:

(1) These are not cases of fraud; and

(2) It need hardly be said that the rule of damages under the Civil Law differs from that of the common law, and has no application here; neither has any code which has the Civil Law for a parent.

LEGITIMATE COMPENSATION AND HEREIN OF

EXTRAVAGANT CLAIMS.

Hereafter, under the proper heads, the testimony of the several owners of the respective vessels and the other evidence will be analyzed, so that what may be deemed the highest limit of fair valuations and fair compensation for injuries may be arrived at from the testimony.

The tendency to preposterous exaggeration by claimants against nations, and especially under Claims Commissions, has been universally observed, and is authoritatively set down in the books as a matter to be treated as a general rule in arriving at valuations.

Under the British and American Claims Convention of 1871, 55,000 printed pages (74 octavo volumes of 800 pages each) of testimony were taken, and the aggregate of claims presented by British subjects against the United States was $96,000,000. The total awards of the Commission on those claims aggregated $1,929,819. The claim of American citizens presented to that Commission against Great Britain aggregated $1,000,000, of which none were allowed. (Brit. Agent's Rep., p. 5, App. 164; and see Am. Agent's Rep., vol. 6, Papers Treaty of Wash., pp. 4,8.)

Under the Convention of February 12, 1871, between the United States and Spain, upwards of $30,000,000 of claims were presented and considered, and of this amount there was allowed something over $1,000,000. (Am. Rep., "Opinions and Decisions," Appendix.)

Before the American and British Commission of 1853 claims aggregating some millions of dollars were presented by each country against the other, and the total award on them was, on account of British subjects, $277,102.88, and on account of American citizens, $329,734.16. (Am. Agent's Report--Introduction and Recapitulation.)

Under the Claims Convention between the United States and Mexico of July 4, 1868, the claims presented aggregated $470,126,613.13, and the Commissioners allowed on them the sum of $3,975,123.79.* In April, 1871, the Montijo, an American ship, pers, 1874- was captured and detained by the United States of 75, Vol. 66, Colombia. The United States preferred a claim for damages.

Brit.and For.

State Pa

p. 402 et seq.

The matter was referred to arbitrators. The amount of the claim presented was $94,000. The arbitrators disagreed, and the matter was then referred to the British minister as umpire. The report on the question of compensation made by the American arbitrator was affirmed by the umpire, cutting the compensation down to $33,000.

On the claims for British ships destroyed in the Seine by Prussia, Great Britain referred the valuations to the lords of the privy council of trade for investigation and audit. The result was reported by the board of trade, who, after investigation, said of the claims preferred by the respective owners for the losses of their vessels that they were "far in excess of the most extravagant valuation that could be put upon them."

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*In 1880 a British subject in Greece was injured, his family beaten, and "his whole property destroyed." His claim on the Greek Government, which Great Britain took up, was for £21,295 18.4d. Great Britain's method of intervention at first was by making reprisals. Greece protested, and Russia remonstrated. Through the mediation of France the controversy was adjusted by referring it to commissioners, who, on full investigation and appraisement of compensation, awarded the British subject £150. (Baker's Halleck, Vol. I, p. 472, note.)

And again: "Those estimates are extravagant and absurd in the extreme."

The Registrar of the Court of Admiralty also made a report, in which he said:

In the present case the claims preferred are so outrageous that I should be inclined to adopt the rule which I always follow in court, namely, never to allow the claimant his costs when he puts forward a very extravagant claim, as has been done in these cases.

It is of interest to note the comparative valuations put upon ships by their owners, and by the Board of Trade and Admiralty for compensation, as follows:

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The aggregate of claims presented was 20,270 pounds; the total allowed on the able report of the registrar of the Court of Admiralty was 6,899 pounds.

A similar report by the same authorities was made on the American claims and filed as a part of the British case before the arbitrators at Geneva, wherein they say:

It will at once be admitted by those who are at all familiar with the practice of the courts in maritime cases that it is impossible to place much reliance on the opinion or evidence of shipowners or merchants as to the value of property which they are seeking to recover. Shipowners are in the habit of founding their estimate not on what would be the market price of the vessel at the time of her loss, but on

Vol.2, Papers relating to Treaty of Washington, p. 283.

the original cost price, and often take into account the amounts which they have expended at different times without making any proper deductions for the wear and tear and damage which has been sustained. Merchants are inclined to estimate the value of their goods by the profits which they had hoped to realize, without making any allowance for the risk of the market price falling or other contingencies on which those profits so often depend.

Chief Justice Cockburn, in his opinion on the claims, says:

The true character of these claims will be seen by comparing the amount of the demands now made for the prospective earnings of the whalers with the original list of claims forwarded by Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams in 1866 and communicated by the latter to the British Government. It thus appears that these claims have, without any assignable reason, increased to such an extent that they are now sometimes double, sometimes treble, and sometimes even more than five times what they were in the original list.

The following table exhibits some of the more striking

cases.

Many other similar instances of extraordinary and arbitrary increase might be cited, but the above will suffice to show (what, indeed, a mere comparison of the claims themselves with the value and tonnage of the vessels but too clearly proves) that these demands are of a most extortionate character.

Vol. 4, Pa- I believe that the estimate of $100 per ton for ship and pers, Treaty outfit (whaling ship), proposed in the British Reports, is such of Wash.pp. 538-541. as would be accepted as adequate by persons acquainted with the character and value of whaling vessels.

Using these few of many instances for illustration, attention is called to the evolution of the claims here from the time they first appeared and were first presented by Great Britain at Paris until they appear again in tabulated form in the argument here. This table does not include the costs in the Sayward case or "Additional claims," but simply the claims by the owners of the ships, showing the same description of

claims as they have seen the light at three different

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In observing this table and the amounts in the column of claims as presented at Victoria, it should be remarked in passing that if the general plan of presentation as pioneered by the alleged owner, Munsie, in the long hearing in the case of the Carolena, had not miscarried, within the observation of those who were to come after, no one would venture to estimate how far the preposterous exaggeration would have

gone.

Equipment for business in general, for fishing voyages on the coast for other seasons, for supplies for other ships, stocks of goods for Indian trading stores, and so on, might have been added to the enormous amounts that are now shown; and, as in the case of the Carolena, vouchers might have been presented of the most orderly, most regular, and correct kind to convince the Commissioners that all these were used

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