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 or captured as a prize and, subsequently, owned by British subjects. The Act also ordered that her name and the port to which she belonged should be painted conspicuously on her stern, and that her certificate of registration should contain full particulars of her dimensions, age, and owners, together with the name of her commander and other details.

Some eminent writers on commerce, among whom the late J. R. McCulloch stands conspicuous, have doubted the utility of compulsory registration; but this system, in after years materially improved, has been of great service to the State, as well as to individual shipowners. Indeed the exigencies of trade alone required that English merchant vessels should be provided in time of war with legally authorised certificates, so that they might be at once distinguished from those of other nations. Besides, the incalculable amount of property entrusted to owners of vessels obviously requires that their ships should be identifiable by a proper system of registration; for there would be little or no security for the safe transport of merchandise unless the title to the ship as well as to the cargo were indisputably established by the certificates of register, and by the customs' and clearance papers, which the ship was then by law required to carry.

From the earliest period of American independence, Congress passed a registration measure corresponding almost exactly with that of Great Britain.