will, therefore, certify an opinion to the circuit court in conformity with that decision. Certificate for the defendant." a Vide, 1 Gallison, 488, for the learned and elaborate opinion of Mr. J. STORY, in the circuit court, in this case, tending to show that all offences within the admiralty jurisdiction are cognizable by the 1816. The (PRIZE.) The St. Nicholas.-MEYER ET AL. Claimants. A question of proprietary interest. Where enemy's property is fraudulently blended in the same claim with neutral property, the latter is liable to share the fate of the ⚫former. APPEAL from the circuit court of Georgia. This vessel and the cargo were libelled as prize of war. The ship was claimed by John E. Smith, the supercargo, in behalf of John Meyer, alleged to be a Russian subject residing at St Petersburg. The cargo consisted of logwood and cotton, 200 bales of which were claimed by Smith, in behalf of Platzman & Gosler, also alleged to be Russian merchants of St. Petersburg. The remainder of the cargo, consisting of 950 bales of cotton, and 58 tons of logwood, were 1816. The claimed in behalf of John Inerarity, a Scotchman, domiciled at Pensacola, and an adopted Spanish St. Nicholas. subject. The vessel was restored in the district March 21st. court, and the cargo condemned, except the logwood, which was restored. Both parties appealed to the circuit court, and the cause was then heard and considered; but that court, under the influence of personal considerations, rendered only a pro forma decree, affirming the sentence of the district court, at the same time expressing a strong opinion that both vessel and cargo were liable to condemnation. The cause had been continued at the last term of this court for farther proof, but no farther proof was produced at the present term. The cause was argued by Key and Harper, for the appellants and claimants, and by Pinkney and Charleton, for the respondents and captors. JOHNSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court as follows: This case presents itself in this court under a cloud of circumstances unusually threatening. There is scarcely wanting in it one of those characteristics by which courts of admiralty are led to the detection of neutral fraud. Whether we consider the persons who conduct the voyage, the original character of the vessel, the time and circumstances of the transfer, the trade she has since been engaged in, the funds with which that trade has been transacted, or the manner in which it has been conducted, we find "the hopes and wishes of the adventure centering 1816. The in the hostile country. La French, the master, is a native Dane, a naturalized American citizen, a Russian subject, and, finally, domiciled and his family St. Nicholas. residing in Great Britain, but (as he declares himself) having no particular residence. Smith, the supercargo, is a native Englishman, but a naturalized citizen of the United States. He has resided near 30 years in Baltimore, where the war finds him. He sails for Lisbon; from thence to Great Britain; and is almost immediately, without showing any pretensions to such credit, employed by an opulent house of trade to take charge of this adventure, with a latitude of discretion which could be the result only of long acquaintance, or very strong recommendations. Such men are the proper instruments of belligerant or neutral fraud; they are the avowed panders of the mercantile world; their consciences are in the market. Having no national character or feeling, and but very few qualms of any other kind, their talents and fidelity to their employers, like those of the bravo, are sought out by the projectors of iniquitous adventure. And who are Meyer, and Platzman & Gosler? They are introduced in the bills of the day as very important personages; the one was the owner of the ship, the other of the cargo; but we find them acting a part conspicuous only for its insignificance. They cross the stage, and disappear. It is a circumstance which scarcely admits of explanation, that Meyer never exercised a single act of ownership over this vessel. He resides at St. Petersburg, she is lying at Cronstadt. He purchases her, for aught we know, without having ever seen 1816. The her, of a person whom nobody knows, and whom 1.. thing connects with the vessel; is introduced by a St. Nicholas. Mr. Nicholas, of Virginia, to the master, leaves him in command, and, from that time to the present, does not give him one order, nor writes a single letter to him. If we could suppose it possible, that there was no correspondence between them from the 31st of July, 1812, when the ship was purchased, to the 22d December, when she was chartered to Platzman & Gosler, at least he would have written at that time and enclosed the master a copy of the charter-party, and a letter of instructions to regulate his conduct in the distant and perilous voyage on which he was about to enter. But we find La French without one scrap of instruction from the supposed owner, and, in all things, yielding implicit obedience to the supposed agent of Platzman & Gosler, whose interests might very well have been in many things inconsistent with those of the charterer. And what is not less remarkable, although he acknowledges that he must have been eighteen months or two years master of the same ship prior to the sale to Meyer, we find nothing about him or the vessel by which we can discover who the former owner was, and when he is asked who executed the bill of sale to Meyer, his reply is, he does not know; thus leading, fairly, to a conclusion, that reasons exist now, and existed formerly, for rendering such a correspondence either unnecessary or unsafe to accompany the ship. As to Platzman & Gosler, the same observation is strikingly applicable to them. From the moment they launch their bark upon the ocean, she becomes, as to them, 1816. The a perfect derelict. Not one anxious inquiry, not one expression of feeling, is communicated by letter to their agent in London. Such, at least, we have a St. Nicholas. right to infer from the non-production of any such correspondence upon the order for farther proof. And, upon the supposition of the fairness of this transaction, the existence of letters to prove it fair, was unavoidable; for the letter of the 22d December, expressly calls for correspondence prior to that date, and having relation to this adventure. that, as difficulties thickened upon the adventure in Pensacola, bills on bills were drawn upon the British house, and letters on letters sent under cover to them, it would have followed that communications would be made to the Russian house, and bills drawn for reimbursement. But over all this there rests an ominous silence. Beside Nor is there any intrinsic skill in the machinery of this transaction. It can neither claim the praise of genius in its invention, nor of skilful execution in the adaptation of its parts. The very inception of it is laid in a bungling artifice that would not cheat a novice in the arts of commercial evasion. It bears, on the face of it, the record of its own conviction, and confesses itself to be, what it was intended to be, nothing but a neutral cloak. The correspondents, Simpson & Co., to whom the letter of the 22d of December is addressed, are expressly instructed to attach that letter to the invoice and bill of lading, in order to support the Russian national character. This, of itself, is conclusive to show that this evidence constituted no part of the mercantile transac |