Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/144

 *

then addressed the Board of Customs, requesting that they would direct their officers at Liverpool to expunge from the declaration the words above recited; but the Board, acting under advice, refused compliance with the request. The Company's secretary then demanded registry on behalf of the Company as a "corporate body," and claimed to make the declaration, contained in the 13th section of the Act aforesaid, which applies to corporate bodies. That declaration does not, like the other declaration, exclude foreign interest; and if, in the first instance, the Company had claimed registry as a corporate body, the probability is, that it would have been granted as a matter of course, without raising the question of foreign interest. But the Collector and Controller at Liverpool, with a full knowledge that foreigners were proprietors of the vessel, and adverting to the 13th and other sections of the Registry Act, refused registry; and the Commissioners of Customs, acting upon their solicitor's opinion, supported the Liverpool officers in their refusal to grant the registry. The Company then moved for a mandamus in the Court of Queen's Bench; and, after the usual proceedings in such cases, it was decided by the Court that as the Company applied for registration in its corporate capacity, the Court could not take notice of its constituent members, whether they were actually foreigners or not; or, in other words, that an English Incorporated Company was a British subject for the purposes of the Registry Act.
 * quest, refused to make this alteration. The Company

The result of this remarkable decision was that foreigners, when incorporated, could own a ship, but