AUGUSTA. March 19th, 1822. Rights of grantees of the Crown. lument they are honourable privileges, but often burdensome in their character. I have already observed, that property of the description of wreck, may by the general law be acquired beneficially for the Crown. It is therefore very properly, in the first instance, placed in the custody of the admiralty: the proctor of the admiralty interposes for its protection, until a claim is given; but as soon as a lawful owner appears, he withdraws his claim, as he did in this particular case; the right of the Crown to the property is then gone; the ship and goods are restored, and the charges of the admiralty are paid. The disbursements of the officers of the Crown are made for the preservation of the property; when that is claimed, they are entitled to be indemnified. The rights of Lord Abergavenny appear to stand very much on the same footing as those of the Crown, from which they are derived. As grantee, he is empowered to take possession of property wrecked within the manor, but only till a claim is made. When a claim is given with a reasonable prospect of proof, his right of custody ceases, and he has no further interest in the property. Here the reeve takes possession, in my opinion, as the lord's deputy; and he deposits the property in his own warehouse; but he has not an exclusive possession, for the officers of the customs and excise interpose, and affix their locks to the doors. Some allowance, however, a moderate one certainly, should be made to him, and he must be repaid whatever he has fairly expended; and the Court would gladly have been informed how far his expectations go upon this occasion: my own notions of remuneration do not rise to any extravagant height, for It AUGUSTA. 1822. I see no very extraordinary merits in the case. cannot be worth while to trouble Lord Abergavenny, March 19th, for the preservation of his rights, with any apportionment of the reward that the Court proposes to give, in lieu of salvage, to the reeve, for it is in that character that I regard him to have acted in the greater part of this business, and not in his own personal character. The Court desires to be understood as not infringing upon the rights of Lord Abergavenny; It merely wishes to put a stop to proceedings which may now well be dismissed without the incurring of further expence. I am therefore willing to allow the reeve, exclusive of his expences, something of a gratuity-salvage I can hardly call it, for it cannot strictly be considered as a salvage case; but I will give him the sum of 100%. expences de frayed by a sale of cargo, free from duties. The Court decreed the sum of 100l. to be paid to the reeve for 1&2 G. 4. c.75. his services to the ship and cargo (but without prejudice to the s.38. Salvage rights of the lord of the manor), and condemned the ship and cargo in the said sum, and in the expences of both parties; and moreover decreed so much of the cargo as will suffice to defray the proportion of the said sum of 100%. and the expences on all sides chargeable on the cargo, to be sold duty free, pursuant to the provisions of 1 & 2 Geo. 4. c.75. s. 38.; and referred the said expences to the registrar and merchants to report thereon. On the 24th of April the report was brought in and confirmed; when the Judge, upon the petition of the proctor for the reeve, directed a commission to issue for the purpose of selling so much of the cargo as will defray the amount of the said report, together with such other charges as may attend the sale thereof; such sale to be made with the concurrence and under the authority of the commissioners of the customs and excise: and with consent of all parties, ordered the commission of sale to be directed to the claimant of the ship and cargo. On the 8th of August, the proctor for the owners alleged, that in virtue of the commission sundry parts of the cargo had AUGUSTA. March 19th, 1822. been sold duty free, to defray the amount of salvage and expences, but that subsequent to the report of the registrar, other charges and expences had been incurred, as also the expences of the sale. The surrogate referred them to the registrar and merchants for a further report; and no objection was made.* * See infrà, the Jonge Nicolaas, PARMA. Also 6 Geo.4. c.107. ss. 47, 48. April 30th, 1822. Rate of broker age upon the sale of prize The same com to a broker, ticular circum stances of the case, upon the sale of prize goods under HARREGAARD. PETERSON. (PRIZE COURT.) THIS Danish East-Indiaman, whilst on her return voyage from Tranquebar and Bengal to goodsgenerally. Copenhagen, laden with a cargo of indigo, sugar, mission allowed and tea, was captured, in February 1808, by under the par- H. M.'s ship Otter, and carried to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in the following month, the same were condemned as good and lawful prize. Mr. Bird, the agent for the captors, consigned the the East India ship and part of her cargo to Wheeler and Farnworth of London, merchants, and substituted them as agents. Under their directions a sale of the ship and goods was effected by Smith, Marten, & Co. brokers, who paid over the balance of the proceeds, (being upwards of 140007.) to their employers. the direction of Company, On the 15th of December 1817, the admiralty proctor, on behalf of the treasurer of the navy †, t See 54 Geo.3. c. 93. s. 11. April 30th, 1822. obtained a monition against the agent *, and sub- HARREGAARD. stituted agents t, to bring in the account of the sale of the ship and cargo, and the balance of the proceeds undistributed. On the 18th of April 1820, the papers and accounts were referred to the registrar and merchants. On the 18th of June, the registrar brought in the report, by which it appeared that the sum of 80l. 10s. 3d., being one moiety of the sum charged by Smith, Marten, & Co. for brokerage, was disallowed. In February 1821, at the petition of the substituted agents, a monition issued against Smith, Marten, & Co., for the payment of that sum: they appeared, and prayed to agents ecreed; * On the 2d May 1820, the Judge pronounced Bird, the Attachments against prize agent, to be in contempt, by reason of his not having made any satisfactory return to the monition; and decreed him to be attached; but ordered the attachment to be directed to the Judge of the Vice Admiralty Court at the Cape, with a special instruction that it should not be enforced until the expiration of three months from its arrival; but to be then executed, unless it shall appear to him that the said monition has been obeyed by a remittance of the undistributed proceeds to Great Britain as thereby directed, or unless a satisfactory explanation shall be made why it has not been complied with. In the Juno, BATES, (July 9th, 1822) an attachment in similar terms was decreed. On May 7th, 1822, in the case of the Isle of France, Lushing ton moved, that the attachment, under which Mr. Reid had been superseded. confined in the tolbooth at the Cape of Good Hope for five years, should be superseded. Ordered. + In the case of the La Felicitè, captured in 1808, a question was raised as to the liability of a substituted prize agent, when the Court held, that he was not liable, and dismissed him and the assignees of his estate from the monition; as It had done in a former case of the Emily, PEACOCK, where the same parties were concerned. July 6th, 1824. April 15th, 1823. HARREGAARD. be heard in objection, and the case now came before the Court in an act on petition. April 30th, 1822. For the brokers, Lushington and Dodson. There are two questions for the consideration of the Court First, whether Smith, Marten, & Co. have been rightly called upon in this case. Secondly, whether the brokerage ought to be 17. per cent. or 10s. per cent. The original charge of 17. per cent. was never objected to when the accounts were rendered; it was acquiesced in by the agents, and, as far as appears, by the captors for twelve years. If the agents allowed any exorbitant charge, the process of the Court ought to be directed against them. It is true, the Court has the power of proceeding against any individual who may have retained prize property, however remotely concerned, but this, however, must be exercised within some circumscribed bounds; for if it were carried to an extreme length, it might involve the Court in the discussion of suits against warehousemen and carriers. The time that has elapsed is of the greatest importance in the consideration of this question, for, from the omission of these agents to settle their accounts, twelve years is allowed to pass away before a monition issues against the brokers to refund the trifling sum of 847. 10s. 3d. The firm of the brokers is now altered; it is no longer composed of the same individuals; and their accounts have long since been wound up and adjusted. We advert to these grounds of inconveniences, but we can resist the demand on principle. By 46 Geo. 3. c. cxiii., all goods coming from the East Indies are regularly vested in the warehouses of the East India Company, and are sold at their sales; and it is alledged |