Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/679

 THE TRENTON. 665 �and validity of such liens by foreiga countries is not to be confounded with the giying them a superiority or priority over ail other liens and rights justly acquired in sueh foreign countries under their owu laws, raerely because the former liens in the oountry where they first attached had there, by law or by custom, such a superiority or priority." In ^ar^ rison v. Sterry, 5 Cranch, 289, Chief Justice Marshall used the following language: "The law of the place where the con tract is made is, generally speaking, the law of the con- traet ; that is, it is the law by which the contract is expounded. But the right of priority forms no part of the contract itself. It is extrinsic, and rather a personal privilege, dependent upon the law of the place where the property liep, and where the court sits which is to decide the cause." �It is believed to. be the rule of the English as well as American courts of admiralty, af ter the payment of maritime liens, to direct the surplus proceeds to be paid over to any one who may have a lien upon such proceeds by the law of the place where the contract from which the lien arose is made ; or, at least, to retain the f und in court until the court of chancery shaU have made an order for its distribution. Tlu Flora, 1 Hagg. 298; The Harmonie,,! W. Eob. 178; The Nordstjernen, Swab. 260 ; The Gustaf, 6 L. T. (N. S.) 660. �But even if the foreign court should misjudge this question, and hold that, by the law of Ohio, the libellant had no lien at ail upon the vessel, or should deny his petition for pay- ment from the remnants in court, the sale would not thereby be invalidated, or the vessel remain subject to arrest in this country. This was the precise question decided in Gastrique V. Imrie, L. E. 4 H. of L. e27. That was an action of frover by the assignee of a mortgagee for the conversion of the ship Ann Martin. Defendant claimed title as purchaser at a judicial sale in France. The question arose whether the proceedings in the French civil tribunal were in personam or in rem. It was held that the sale ordered was not of the interest of the owner in the ship, as upon execution, but of the ship itself; and that such sale divested the title of the ����