Facts of the Case
It appeared on the return of the record that La Vengeance, a French privateer, had captured and carried into New York a Spanish ship, called La Princessa de Asturias, and that thereupon Don Diego Pintardo, the owner of the prize, filed a libel in the district court complaining of the capture, alleging that La Vengeance was illegally fitted out within the United States, and praying restitution and damages; but on a claim exhibited in behalf of the owners of the privateer, the district court dismissed the Libel with costs, and upon appeal to the circuit court that decree was affirmed. The fate of Pintardo's Libel determined likewise the fate of an information filed ex officio by the district attorney claiming the privateer as a forfeiture upon the same allegation that she had been illegally armed and equipped in the United States in violation of the act of Congress, and in both these decisions the parties acquiesced. But a third proceeding had been instituted against the privateer in which the district attorney filed ex officio an information stating "that Aquila Giles, marshal of the said district, had seized to the use of the United States, as forfeited, a certain schooner or vessel called La Vengeance, with her tackle, apparel, and furniture, the property of some person or persons to the said attorney unknown, for that certain cannons, muskets, and gunpowder, to-wit, 2 cannon, 20 muskets, and 50 boxes of gunpowder were, between 22 May, 1794, and 22 May, 1795, * exported in the said schooner or vessel from the said United States, to-wit, from Sandy Hook in the State of New Jersey (that is to say, from the City of New York in the New York District) to a foreign country, to-wit, to Port-de-Paix in the Island of St. Domingo in the West Indies, contrary to the prohibitions of the act in such case made and provided," and praying judgment of forfeiture accordingly. A claim was filed on behalf of the owners of the privateer denying the exportation of cannon or muskets and alleging that the gunpowder constituted part of the equipment of the Semillante, a frigate belonging to the Republic of France, and had been taken from her and put on board the privateer, to be carried to Port-de-Paix by order of the proper officer of the said Republic. It was, also, alleged, that the schooner after her arrival at Port-de-Paix was bona fide sold to one Jaques Rouge, a citizen of the French Republic, in whose behalf the claim was instituted.
Conclusions
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Where muskets were carried by the passengers on beard of a French armed vessel from New York to a port in the West Indies, and powder was taken from on board a French frigate in the harbor of New York and carried by this same vessel to Port de Paix, a proceeding against the vessel, as forfeited under the Act of Congress passed 22 May, 1793, prohibiting for one year the exportation of arms and ammunition, is a cause of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. It is a process of the nature of a libel in rem, and does not in any degree touch the person of the offender, and no jury was required for the trial of the same.