Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/302

 §90 FKDESBAIi BEFOBTEB. �ment of August 16, 1867, which really, in connection with the delivery of the ; vessels, amounted to a bill of sale of them, does not seem to have been presented as it should have been. The letter from the custom-house at Liverpool to the board of commissioners of customs, submitting to them the above-named letter and the certificate, as an application that the vessels might be registered in the name of the Steam- sbip; Company, spoke of the application as being one "sanc- tioned by ,the annexed certificate of incorporation." No Bucl^thing was sanctioned by the certiflcates. What they would have sanctioned would have been a change of the registry from the name of "The Steam-ship Company, lim- ited," to the name of "The National Steam-ship Company, limited," if the vessels had been registered in the name of the former company. The chief registrar seems to have re- garded the application as one for such a change, for, in the paper signed by him, he says that "the evidence of change of name of the company being satisfactory, as shown by the enclosed certificates of incorporation," the registers may be noted as requested, The only evidence of change of name he had in the certificates submitted was a change from the first name of the new company to the second name of the new com- pany, and his conclusion thereon that the request might be granted eould only legitimately have been a conclusion that the vessels, being registered in such first name, might be registered in such second name. He must have overlooked the fact that the vessels were registered in the name of the Naviga- tion Company. The matter having thus passed the routine, the order of the board was made by simply writing on the papers the words "ordered," with the initiais "T. F. F." The proper paper being then sent to the custom-house at Liverpool, and the thing ordered being that the registers might be noted as requested, and the request being that the registry might be transfefred from the Navigation Company to the Steam-ship Company, this was done. But, as said before, whether this was a mistake, or done without authority, or done on insuffi- cient evidence, is of no consequence here. It was not done on any papers showing any identity between the Navigation ��� �