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and those who are already entitled by naturalization to the same rights, save in the exceptional cases expressed in the Constitution; yet it was supposed that the Act of 1813, requiring a continuous residence during the probationary term, which is wholly incompatible with the nature of the sea-faring life, might have been received by England, as a practical exclusion from the commercial service of all foreign-born seamen. That provision was repealed in 1848; and the Act of March 27, 1804, denationalizing any American vessel,, the owner of which, in whole or in part, if a naturalized citizen, shall reside more than a year in the country from which he originated, or more than two years in any foreign country, which still remains in force,2 would seem to be the only discrimination now known to our laws between native and naturalized citizens.

In 1816, Mr. Wheaton became Reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which capacity he continued till 1827. Twelve volumes of Reports, containing, as it is well termed in a German notice of our author, "the golden book of American law," permanently connect his name with the jurisprudence of the Union. Already familiar with the languages and literature of Europe, and with her legal systems, he was called on to record the application of every branch of public and municipal law to the diversified objects of international and federal relations, as well as of private rights. It was his fortune to be associated with that high tribunal during the period when the Prize Code, which he had already traced, as far as it was then established, was completed by the subsequent adjudications of the cases growing out of the recent war. In his time, also, the power intrusted to the Court, and which is peculiar to institutions like ours, of bringing to the test of the Constitution the validity of all the proceedings of Congress and of the State legislatures, was exercised to such an extent, as to leave little room for the further interpretation of our organic law.

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In a review by Mr. Wheaton of one of the volumes of the Reports of Judge Story's Circuit decisions, and which includes many prize cases, he thus gives a history of prize law to the time of the late war: Among the leading principles of law, developed and settled during the war of the Revolution, and which have ever since been recognized as a part of the prize code of this country, are the following: - The exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty over all the incidents of prize and its right to entertain a supplemental libel for distribution of the prize proceeds after condemnation.1 That an ally is bound by the capitulation made by another ally with the inhabitants of a conquered country, by which their property is exempted from capture. But that an ally is not bound by a mere voluntary suspension of the rights of war against a part of the enemy's dominions, by a co-belligerent, not growing out of a capitulation. The distinction between a perfect war and an imperfect war, or partial hostilities. That in a perfect war nothing but a treaty of peace can restore the neutral character of any of the belligerent parties; and consequently that the British proclamation of 1781, exempting from capture all Dutch ships carrying the produce of Dominica according to the capitulation by which that island had surrendered to the French, did not restore back to a Dutch ship her original neutral character, so as to protect her cargo from capture by American cruisers under the ordinance of Congress of April 1, 1781, by which the United States temporarily adopted the principles of the armed neutrality, which had been formed in Europe the preceding year. That the rule recognized by this ordinance of free ships free goods, did not extend to the case of a fraudulent attempt by neutrals, to combine with British subjects to

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wrest from the United States and France the advantages they had obtained over Great Britain by the rights of war in the capitulation of Dominica, by which all commercial intercourse between that island and Great Britain was prohibited. That Congress did not mean by their ordinance to ascertain in what cases the rights of neutrality should be forfeited in exclusion of all other cases; for the instances not mentioned were as flagrant as the cases particularized.1 That the papers which a vessel is directed to sail with, by the municipal law of her own country, are the documents which a prize court has a right to look for as evidence of proprietary interest; though not conclusive evidence. The fraudulent blending of enemy's and neutral property in the same claim involves both in the same condemnation. The domicile of a party is conclusive as to his national character in a prize court. The municipal laws of any particular country cannot change the law of nations: as between captor and captured, the property is divested instantly on the capture; but a neutral claimant is not barred until a final condemnation in a competent prize court. All other municipal regulations of salvage extend only to the citizens of the country making those regulations. The authority of the prize court to make distribution of the prize proceeds where there is no agreement between the owners, officers, and crew of the capturing vessel. And its authority to decree a sale where the res in litigation is perishable. The conclusiveness of sentences of condemnation upon the property. The simplicity of the prize proceedings upon the papers found on board, and the examination of the captured persons. That the omission of the captors to bring in all the

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captured persons and papers will not forfeit their rights of prize, unless a fraudulent omission.1 And lastly, the illegality of trade by a citizen with the enemy.

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Mr. Wheaton very happily contrasts our system of admiralty courts, as at present organized, with those of other countries. "The subjects of foreign States have had reason to rejoice that the decision of their rights have been vested in the same pure hands, with which the people of this country have intrusted their dearest privileges. Nor does the experience of other countries give us or them any reason to regret that our prize jurisdiction is not placed in a cabinet council, or judges removable at the pleasure of such a council. Even that highly gifted and accomplished man, (Sir W. Scott,) has been compelled to avow that he was bound by the king's instructions; and we know that his decrees are liable to be reversed by the privy council, from which those instructions emanate.3 So, also, in France, both under the royal and imperial governments, the prize jurisdiction has been almost constantly vested in the Council of Prizes,a board composed of members removable at the pleasure of the crown-a mere commission created at the breaking out of every war, and dissolved on its termination. During the anarchy of the Revolution, it was exercised by judges, many of whom were notoriously concerned in privateers, the fruits of whose plunder from innocent neutrals they were to adjudge. The rapacity

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The Orders in Council, in reference to neutral trade, gave rise to discussions in the British courts of admiralty as to the obligatory force of the King's instructions. Sir W. Scott appeared, at one time, to regard the text of these instructions as binding on his judicial conscience, (Robinson's Adm. Rep. vol. ii. p. 202,) and at another he held it indecorous to anticipate the possibility of their conflicting with the law of nations, (Edwards's Adm. Rep. p. 604); while Sir James Mackintosh declared that if he saw in such instructions any attempt to extend the law of nations injuriously to neutrals, he should disobey them, and regulate his conduct by the known and generally received law of nations. (Hall's Law Journal, vol. i. p. 217.)

4 A decree of July 18, 1854, established a Council of Prizes to decide on the

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and injustice of the French and British courts of vice-admiralty in the colonies, are notorious."

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Even while the United States, after the achievement of their independence, were at peace with all the world, controversies between the assured and the underwriters presented questions requiring the application of the principles of the law of nations, and in that way the law of blockade, of commercial domicile, and other points affecting the international code, as well as the innovations which the belligerents were attempting to introduce into maritime law, were judicially considered. The court, also, in the decision of the cases, growing out of the war of 1812, reported before Mr. Wheaton's connection with them, had declared that, as the United States at one time formed a component part of the British Empire, their prize law was, as understood at the time of the separation, the prize law of the United States, though no recent rules of the British courts were entitled to more respect than those of other countries; yet that, where there were no reasons to the contrary, they should regard the decisions of the English courts of admiralty.2

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In the case of The Nereide, they had not only affirmed the rule, that the goods of an enemy in the vessel of a friend were prize of war, and that those of a friend in the vessel of an enemy were to be restored, to be a part of the law of nations, but they also decided that the stipulation in the treaty of 1795, with Spain, that "free ships shall make free goods," does not imply the converse proposition that "enemy ships shall make enemy goods." In the same case, they differed from Sir William

validity of all prizes made under French authority, during the present war with Russia. It is composed of a President, who is a Counsellor of State, and six members, who are named by an imperial decree on the nomination of the ministers of foreign affairs and of the marine. Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1853-4, App. p. 911.

1 North American Review, vol. viii. p. 256.

2 Cranch's Rep. vol. ix. p. 191. Thirty hogsheads of sugar v. Boyle. 3 Ibid. p. 388.

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