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POLICIES of Insurance are construed by the same rules as other instruments; unless where by the known usage of merchants and shipowners certain words have acquired for the purposes of these contracts a peculiar sense distinct from the ordinary and popular sense.

In case of doubt occasioned by an apparent discrepancy between the words superadded in writing and the printed form in which they are inserted, the written words, as being selected by the parties for the expression of their particular meaning, have the greater effect.

Insurance.

Robertson and Thompson v. French.

4 East, 130-142 (7 R. R. 535).

·At and from ... beginning from loading at B. — General Rules

of Construction.

Where by a policy of insurance ship and goods were insured "at [130] and from all and every port, &c., on the coast of Brazil, and after the 17th September to the Cape of Good Hope, beginning the adventure upon the goods VOL. XIV.-1

No. 52. Robertson v. French, 4 East, 130, 131.

from the loading thereof aboard the said ship at all or every port, &c., on the coast of Brazil, and from the 17th September, 1800, and upon the ship in the same manner," with liberty to sail, &c., any places backwards or forwards under the Portuguese government, &c., at å premiuin of four guineas per cent, to return £3 10s. should the ship have arrived or the risk have otherwise ceased on or before the 17th of September. Held, that the policy could only have attached on.bomeward-bound cargo laden on board at the coast of Brazil, and did not Coser, a cargo originally taken in at the Cape of Good Hope, and which continued on board after the 17th of September, while the ship was on the coast of Brazil, and after she left it on her return to the Cape. Neither did the policy cover the ship itself, which was insured in the same manner as the goods — and no goods having been laden on the coast of Brazil. Policies of insurance are to be construed by the same rules as other instruments, unless where, by the known usage of trade, or the like, certain words have acquired a peculiar sense distinct from their ordinary and popular sense. In an action on a policy, the property of the ship may be proved by parol evidence of the possession of the assured, unless disproved by the production of the written documents of the ship under the Register Acts. And held, that such parol evidence of ownership, arising from possession at a particular period, was not disproved by showing a prior register in the name of another and a subsequent register to the same person.

This was an action on a policy of insurance1 effected by the plaintiffs as agents, "lost or not lost, at and from all, any, or every port and place where and whatsoever on the coast of Brazil, and after the 17th day of September to the Cape of Good Hope, upon any kind of goods and merchandises, and also upon the body, &c., of the ship Chesterfield, &c.; beginning the adventure upon the said goods and merchandises from the loading thereof aboard the said ship, at all, any, or every port and place where and whatsoever on the coast of Brazil, and from the 17th day of September, 1800, and upon the said ship, &c., in the same manner; and so shall continue and endure during her abode there upon the said ship, &c., and further until the said ship, &c., and goods, &c., shall be arrived at Simon's Bay or Table Bay, both or either, with lib. erty to call at St. Helena or elsewhere, upon the said ship, &c., and upon the goods, &c., until the same be there discharged, &c. And it shall be lawful for the said ship, &c., in this voyage to proceed

and sail to and touch and stay at any ports or places [*131] whatsoever, particularly backwards and forwards, * and

to and from those under the Portuguese government, or any port, place, island, or elsewhere on the coast of South America, without being deemed any deviation, and without prejudice

1 The words in italics were written; the rest of the policy set out was in the usual printed form.

No. 52. - Robertson v. French, 4 East, 131, 132.

to this insurance. The said ship, &c., goods, &c., valued at £15,680, being upon goods, ship, and freight separately valued as under. And in case of capture, detention, or seizure, by any power whatever, to pay a total loss upon receiving documents of her being carried into port, and without inquiry into the regularity or irregularity of her proceedings; and with liberty to sell, barter, exchange, load, or unload the interest in part or whole at the island St. Catharine, or elsewhere, where and whatsoever. Touching the adventures and perils, &c. [This part of the policy was in the common form.] At the rate of four guineas per cent, to return three pounds and ten shillings should the ship have arrived or this risk otherwise have ceased, on or before the 17th of September. In witness, &c." At the bottom of the policy, the goods were valued at £13,316; ship at £1550; and freight at £814. The plaintiffs declared as agents of Robertson and Walker, upon a loss by the arrest and restraint of the King's ships. And at the trial1 before Lord ELLENBOROUGH, Ch. J., at the sittings after last Hilary Term, at Guildhall, it was admitted that the goods were of the value insured, and had been put on board the ship Chesterfield at the Cape of Good Hope. Much of the evidence turned upon the question, Whether the object of the voyage were to trade with the Spanish settlements in South America; Spain being then at war with this [*132] country? or Whether it were only in contravention of the trading laws of Portugal? But nothing turned upon that point in the case as presented for the consideration of this Court.

It is sufficient to state, that after the cargo had been taken in at the Cape of Good Hope, the ship went from thence, on the 7th of February, 1800, to Benguela, on the coast of Africa, and afterwards to St. Catharine's, on the coast of Brazil, on the 30th of May; then to Rio Janeiro on the 27th of July; stayed there upwards of two months, and remained on the coast till the latter end of November, when, on suspicion of illicit trading with the Spanish enemy, she was taken possession of by some of His Majesty's ships of war, and carried again to the Cape, with the orig

1 Upon the first trial, the plaintiff was nonsuited on the opening of his counsel at Guildhall, it being stated that the goods were put on board at the Cape of

Good Hope, and not on the coast of Brazil. The Court, for the purpose of having the whole case before them, awarded a new trial; and this was the second trial.

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inal cargo on board, where she was libelled by the captors in the Vice-Admiralty Court there, on which the assured abandoned to the underwriters; and the ship, after being liberated by the sentence of the Court, was sold there, and has since arrived in England about October, 1802.

On the part of the plaintiffs another policy, subscribed by this defendant, was offered in evidence, as being on the same subjectmatter, between the same parties, and on the same continued risk; for the purpose of showing that, in point of fact, the defendant had contracted with the present plaintiffs to insure the same subject from the 17th of March to the 17th of September, 1800, being the period of the commencement of the present policy as to time. This was objected to on the part of the defendant, on the ground that the one policy could not be read in explanation of the other; and Lord ELLENBOROUGH only admitted it as evidence of the fact of such a policy having been effected. With

respect to the plaintiffs' title to the ship, the evidence, [133] upon which the objection was founded by the defendant's

counsel, was that of Captain Brooks, the commander of the ship Chesterfield; who proved that at the Cape of Good Hope he had sold her to Robertson and Walker, the two persons in whom the interest is averred to be; that he (Brooks) and Mortlock, the supercargo, had also shares in the ship, and that he was put in possession by one Lawrence Williams; that the power which he (Brooks) had to dispose of the ship was in writing; whereupon it was objected at the trial that no interest was shown. in the parties interested in the insurance; for Brooks proved that they claimed by sale from him, which must be in writing by the Register Acts, and therefore the bill of sale should be produced. The defendant afterwards gave in evidence, for another purpose, the answer of the plaintiffs to a bill filed in Chancery; in which answer it appeared that Lawrence Williams was the owner of the ship when she left England. And he also read in evidence the sentence of the Vice-Admiralty Court at the Cape of Good Hope (now under appeal before the Lords of the Privy Council), by which the property in the ship was adjudged to be in the person claiming, to whom in the declaration it is averred to belong, and was directed to be restored to them, but that there was just cause of seizure at the time. It also appeared from the registerbook of the Custom-house that up to April, 1799, L. Williams was

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the registered owner; and that in August, 1802, there was a subsequent register to the same person as sole owner; and that the ship was sold at the Cape under a decree of the Vice-Admiralty Court there. The plaintiffs recovered a verdict; and in the last term a rule nisi was obtained for setting aside the verdict and entering a nonsuit, upon two objections: 1st, with respect to the interest of the assured; and, 2d, that neither the [* 134] ship nor the goods on board were covered by the policy in question. The case was argued at very great length by Erskine, Garrow, Park, and Giles, for the plaintiffs; and by Gibbs, Adam, and Marryatt, for the defendant. The greater part of the arguments having turned upon the critical and grammatical construction of the words of the policy, and the judgment of the Court touching upon the leading points, it is unnecessary to detail them here. The principal case adverted to, as illustrative of the meaning of the common printed words in a policy on goods, "beginning the adventure upon the said goods, &c., from the loading thereof aboard the said ship," at, &c., was Hodgson v. Richardson, 1 Black. Rep. 463, which showed, as the defendant's counsel insisted, that the policy only attached on goods actually put on board at the place named whereat the risk was to commence. On the other hand it was contended, that "from the loading thereof aboard," &c., meant from the fact of the goods being on board at such a place; and that in the case mentioned, the fact being clear that the goods had been put on board at Leghorn, five months before, and not at Genoa, into which the ship had afterwards put after losing her convoy, and at which place the policy was to commence, if it had not been admitted on all sides that, primâ facie, at least goods so circumstanced might be covered by the general words of the policy, the plaintiff must have been immediately nonsuited; and it was fruitless to inquire into the question of fraudulent concealment from the underwriter of the time during which the cargo, which was of a perishable nature, had been on board, and upon which the judgment of the Court ultimately turned. Cur. adv. vult.

* Lord ELLENBOROUGH, Ch. J., now delivered the judg- [*135] ment of the Court. This rule was moved for on the part of the defendant on two grounds: First, that the plaintiffs had not given sufficient proof that the interest in the ship was in Robert

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