Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/607

 Such an action may be brought in any court of general jurisdiction in any of the States of the Union; and it may be doubted whether this Act of Congress would be available to limit the measure of damages in these courts, though undoubtedly a convention between Great Britain and the United States, with a proper Act of Congress to carry it into effect, would accomplish the object.

I have, &c., (Signed).

To Sir, S.S.B., &c. &c. &c. (Copy.) An Act to limit the Liability of Shipowners and for other purposes.

(Approved March 3, 1851.)

—And be it further enacted, That the liability of the owner or owners of any ship or vessel for any embezzlement, loss, or distinction by the master, officers, mariners, passengers, or any other person or persons of any property, goods, or merchandise shipped or put on board of such ship or vessel, or for any loss, damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture, done, occasioned, or incurred without the privity or knowledge of such owner or owners, shall in no case exceed the amount or value of the interest of such owner or owners respectively in such ship or vessel, and her freight then pending.

IX. Statutes at Large, ch. xliii., page 635.

(M. 1266.)

Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex, 26th February, 1867.

,

I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday's date, with copy of a despatch and inclosures, received through the Foreign Office from her Majesty's Minister at Washington. By these documents it would appear that the laws of the United States of America, so far as regards the responsibility of British Shipowners in their courts, are the same as they were in 1860, and that, practically, our responsibility is there still unlimited. This is a very unsatisfactory state of things, and, as I have already explained to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, might produce the most disastrous results to some of our Ship