264 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



that in a conversation about the 

 middle of 1812, the plaintiff, after 

 inquiring for the residence of the 

 defendant and his wife, observed, 

 " they have broken their obligation 

 to me, or I would never have been 

 hostile to them." 



Mr. Baron Graham summed up 

 the evidence, when the jury, with- 

 out leaving the box, in about five 

 minutes returned a verdict for the 

 plaintifl' of the amount sued for, 

 wiih all arrears, to the present 

 time. 



Admiralty Prize Court, Doctors' 

 Commons — The Hope and Others. 

 —This was the case of the Hope, 

 and three other American vessels, 

 captured in December last, in the 

 prosecution of a voyage to Spain 

 and Portugal, with cargoes of pro- 

 visions. A claim was made by the 

 owners, on the ground of the ves- 

 sels being exonerated from the cha- 

 racter of hostility, and protected 

 from condemnation, by having on 

 board letters from Mr. Allen the Bri- 

 tish consul at New York, and ad- 

 miral Sawyer, commander on that 

 station, purporting to license them 

 for the voyage, and intended as a 

 safeguard and protection to them 

 throughout it. A variety of objec- 

 tions were urged at great length 

 by the captor's counsel, to the na- 

 ture and extent of the protection, 

 deducible from these documents: 

 and the case stood for the decision 

 of the Court, this day, upon the 

 validity of those objections- 

 Sir William Scott observed, it 

 was difficult to give any precise 

 designation to the letters which, 

 it was contended, furnished the 

 protection in these cases ; a great 

 part of the previous correspondence 



being left out of sight, the Court 

 was left to guess at the contents ; it 

 was therefore only fair to infer, 

 that it contained a proposition to 

 admiral Sawyer, that tiie business 

 should take the course it since had. 

 It was perfectly clear, that there 

 must have been such a proposition, 

 from the evidence of the subse- 

 quent facts. The papers could 

 not, abstractedly, be considered as 

 affording any protection ; those 

 who gave them not being invested 

 with a competent authority to give 

 them that effect. Exemptions from 

 the consequences of hostility, are 

 amongst the highest acts of 

 power ; they are the acts of the 

 sovereign alone, and must flow 

 directly from him, or those in 

 official situations under him. It 

 was not to be contended, that 

 Mr. Allen, the vice-consul, was 

 clothed with this authority in the 

 present case : and an admiral, 

 though he may have considerable 

 power with respect to the forces 

 under him, cannot grant an exemp- 

 tion of this nature beyond the limits 

 of his own command. The only 

 question, therefore, was, whether 

 there has not since been an act 

 of the state ratifying those acts 

 which the law calls spurious ; 

 whether, in fact, the government 

 has not given them an authority 

 they did not before possess ? It 

 appears, that Mr. Foster had been 

 in the habit of granting licences of 

 this sort ever since the Order of the 

 British government, of October 

 13, 1812; and that he had been 

 authorised, or recognised, in so 

 doing, by that Order. Thus the 

 policy of the measure, and the 

 mode of adopting it, had both been 

 sanctioned by the British govern- 



