MESSRS. LAURENT.

Case.

In this case the Messrs. Laurent, British subjects, carrying on business in Mexico, seek compensation from The United States' Government for the seizure and confiscation of 26,000 dollars, the property of the claimants, by General Scott, during the occupation of Mexico by The United States forces.

The learned Agent of The United States' Government having taken a preliminary objection to this claim being adjudicated upon by the Commissioners under the Convention of 1853, upon the ground of its not being within their jurisdiction, a detailed statement of the facts becomes unnecessary, as the merits are not before the Commissioners. It will be sufficient, therefore, to say that after General Scott had taken possession of Mexico, and had assumed the Government there, having first issued a proclamation, in which, in consideration of a contribution of 150,000 dollars to be paid by the City of Mexico, he promised protection and security to the inhabitants and their property, which were declared to be "under the special safeguard and honour of The United States," he seized the sum of 26,000 dollars belonging to the claimants, under the mistaken belief that they were indebted in that amount to the Mexican Government.

MR. HORNBY, British Commissioner:

I AM of opinion that the Messrs. Laurent are entitled, as British subjects, within the meaning of the Convention of 1853, to be heard before the Commissioners in support of their claim to compensation from the Government of The United States.

The first Article of the Convention provides that "all claims on the part of corporations, companies, or private individuals, subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, upon the Government of The United States, and all claims on the part of corporations, companies, or private individuals, citizens of The United States, upon the Government of Her Britannic Majesty, which may have been presented to either Government for its interposition with the other since the signature of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship concluded between Great Britain and the United States of America at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814, and which yet remain unsettled, as well as any other such claims which may be presented within the time specified in Article III, hereinafter mentioned, shall be referred to two Commissioners, to be appointed in the following manner."

It is not disputed that the Messrs. Laurent are Britishborn subjects, nor pretended that, except in so far as their character of British subjects may be affected by mere residence abroad, they have done anything to divest themselves of this character. They have not been naturalized in Mexico; on the contrary, they have annually taken out a permission to reside in Mexico, in which permission they have been uniformly designated as British subjects, and generally they have, so far as lay in their power, preserved their English character. This being so, and having, as they conceive, some ground of complaint against The United States' Government, they have appealed to the English Government for its interposition on their behalf with that of The United States. It

appears therefore to me, that this case comes within the LETTER of the Convention, and is prima facie within our jurisdiction.

But it is contended, by the learned 'Agent of The United States, that though within the letter, the case is not within the spirit of the Convention; submitting that the term "British subjects," used in the Treaty, is not to be interpreted according to English law, but according to international law, and that by the latter a person can only be regarded as a citizen or a subject of the country in which he is for the time being domiciled. I do not, however, understand it to have been assumed by the Agent of Her Majesty's Government that the claimants, being "British subjects" within the terms of a British statute, are, therefore, necessarily "British subjects" within the meaning of the Convention. It is clearly not the Statute Law of England which is to give the Rule of Interpretation, but the obvious intention of the parties to the Treaty.

Now, it is undoubtedly true that treaties are to be interpreted according to international law; but international law does not affix an unvarying meaning to particular words, or prescribe any rule for the construction of Treaties, other than that applicable to the interpretation of all written documents—namely, to discover and give effect to the intention of the contracting parties, which intention is to be collected from the language of the instrument of agreement, taken in connection with surrounding circumstances to which it has reference.

The cases which have been cited by the American Agent are authorities for the well-known principle of international law, that foreigners, domiciled in an enemy's country, cannot set up a neutral character as against an invading force on account of their foreign origin, so as to entitle them to immunity from the ordinary consequences of war; and with this undoubted principle, the declarations of the English Ministers in reference to the present war with Russia, as well as the recent decision of the Admiralty Court in the case of "The Abo," cited by the learned Agent of The United States, are

in strict conformity. It may be also, when we come to consider the merits of Messrs. Laurent's claim, that this principle will be found to govern the decision which we shall have to give for or against the claimants; but upon examination of the cases cited, it is clear they do not establish the principle which they have been supposed to prove, viz., that the term "British subjects," as used in this Treaty, cannot, under any circumstances whatever, be intended to apply to British subjects domiciled out of Her Majesty's dominions.

Several cases which were decided under the Treaty of 1814, between France and England, have been referred to.

The object of that Treaty was to provide compensation for all "British subjects" whose property had been confiscated by the Revolutionary Government of France. If the construction which is now contended for by the American Agent had been put upon the language of that Treaty, it would have followed that no persons domiciled in France could have been admitted to claim compensation under the title of "British subjects;" and such a construction would have gone far to defeat the very object for which the Treaty was entered into, as it is a matter of history that the property of many persons, established as merchants, or otherwise, in France, at the time of the Revolution, was seized upon the very ground that the owners were British subjects, which shows that mere domicile does not settle the question; and, moreover, on reference to the cases, I cannot discover that the construction contended for by the learned Agent was put upon the French and English Treaty.

Genessee's case reported in the 2nd volume of Knapp's Reports, p. 345, is one in which it distinctly appears that Messrs. Boyd and Kerr, the claimants, were established as bankers at Paris. Now, if the present objection were valid, it would have been a sufficient answer to that claim to have said, Messrs. Boyd and Kerr had established themselves for commercial purposes and were domiciled in France; that they had voluntarily divested themselves of the character of British, and had assumed that of French subjects; and can

not, therefore, claim the benefit of a Treaty, which was intended for the protection of those British subjects only who had not quitted their own country. Messrs. Boyd and Kerr, however, were held to be clearly entitled to compensation as British subjects; and by the decision of the same eminent judge, Sir William Scott, whose judgments in other cases have been quoted in opposition to the admissibility of the claim of Messrs. Laurent in the present case. Drummond's case, decided under the same Convention, has been especially relied on. The reasons, however, which are expressly given for the decision in that case, show, it was not determined on the mere fact of the claimant being domiciled in France, but that, from special circumstances,—such as accepting military employment under the French Crown,he had voluntarily taken upon himself the character of a French subject, and, having done so, the new French Government had a right to treat him as such, and, consequently, that he was not entitled to indemnity.

If there had been analogous circumstances in the present case, I might have felt bound to hold that the Messrs. Laurent were not entitled to resume at pleasure, for their advantage, the character of British subjects, which, for their advantage, they had voluntarily renounced; but in the entire absence of such circumstances, I am of opinion, that mere residence abroad does not deprive them of all title to the protection of the British Government, or can preclude that Government from taking steps to procure for them redress if they have suffered an injury in violation of the law of nations, or absolve the American Government from the liability to redress such an injury.

In the case of the "Ann," a British subject who had been domiciled in The United States during the war between that country and Great Britain, sought to be admitted to the benefit of the Orders in Council which were intended to provide compensation for those British subjects who had been inadvertently injured in the course of the war by the English cruisers, the claimant, having adhered to the enemy, was plainly not one of the class of persons for whose relief