Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/176

 GOULD V. aiAPLES. 161 �leaving this country, and that her master is not required to deposit his papers with the consuls at every other foreign port to which she may subsequently proceed. The language of the section is certainly some- wbat ambiguous, and is as follows : "Every master, etc., who shall sail from any port in the United States, shall, on his arrivai at any foreign port, etc., deposit his papers with the consul." In the opin- ion of the court this provision of law requires that at every foreign port where the designated of&cer is to be found, the master, on his arrivai, is bhliged to deposit with him his ship's papers. Every addi- tional port, subsequent to the first to which he may proceed in the course of the voyage, is an arrivai at a foreign port by him. The case is within the letter of the act, and the same reasons which would call for the ship's papers at the first port at which he might arrive would be alike applicable on his arrivai at any other port. The case of Par- sons V. Hunter, 2 Sumn. 419, was one similar to the present. There, the ship, on her voyage from Matanzas to London, touohed at Oowes, and her master, failing to deposit his papers with the consul at Cowes, this suit was instituted for the penalty. This objection was patent on the record, was of a preliminary nature, and if tenable could not have escaped the attention of so careful and discriminating a judge as was Mr. Justice Story. The defendant in that case prevailed, and the reasons of the leamed judge for his decision are set forth in a full and elaborate opinion; but the present objection is not suggested as arising in the cause. �Paragraph 179 of the consular regulations promulgated May 1, 1881, is as follows: �"A vessel arriving within a consular district, although at some port other than that at which the consular office is situated, makes an arrivai in such sense as to require a deposit of the (ressel's papers, and to subject her to con- sular jurisdiction, if the port which she actually enters is within reasonable distance from the consulate, and the communication between the two ports is not difflcult." �This regulation was not promulgated until after the failure of the defendant to deposit his papers with the consular agent at Toulon, herein complained of, and therefore can have no effect upon the rights of the parties to the present suit. The president is by law empow- ered to prescribe regulations for consuls; but he bas no authority to change or modify the law, and thereby subject a master, who fails to comply with such regulations, to penalties nowhere imposed by any act of congress. "Whether paragraph 179 is or not a true con' 'v.9,no.3— 11 ��� �