Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/230

Rh 

1787.

the faid Brig and cargo againft the Defendants. Two other actions are brought by Iʃaiah Doane and James Sheppard againft the fame Defendant for the fame caufe.

The motion to diffolve thefe attachments is founded on a rule and practice of this court, that in cafes of foreign attachments, they will examine into the Plaintiffs caufe of action, and if they find it not to be fuch as would intitle him to hold the Defendnats to fpecial bail, they will diffolve the attachment. This rule was founded on the mifchiefs which were found to arife from groundlefs attachments of the fhips and property of perfons not inhabitants or refident within this State, and its conformable to the fpirit of the attachments law.

The counfel for the Defendants, in order to fhew that there are not fufficient grounds to hold the Defendants to bail, have produced evidence of an original condemnation of the Brig and her cargo as lawful prize in the maritime court of New Hampʃhire, on the 16th day of December  1777, agreeably to an Act on Affembly of that State; and alfo a fimilar condemnation in the Superior Court of Judicature of the State, on an appeal from that maritime Court, with an order for fale and diftribution accordingly. And they urge, that the fubfequent reverfal of thofe fentences, five or fix years afterwards, by the commiffioners of Congrefs appointed for hearing appeals in cafes of prize, is null and void, and infufficient to reveft the property in the claimants, Congrefs having had no power, before the Articles of Confederation, to receive appeals in cafe of prize. They alfo urge that a prior action has been brought by the prefent Plaintiffs againft the Defendants in the stat of Maʃʃachuʃets, for the fame caufe ; and that on the trial of that action, the judges there determined, that the decree of reverfal fhould not be given in evidence to the jury ; and that the Plaintiffs, in order to avoid a verdict againft them, had prayed and obtained leave to difcontinue that action. And that, therefore, the prefent action is vexatious, and the Defendants fhould not be held to bail.

A third reafon is alfo urged by the Defendant counfel, that this being originally a caufe of prize, it is exclufively of Admiralty jurifdiction ; and that no action will lie at common law, either for the original taking, or any of the confequences.

The court have heard, and deliberately confidered, the feveral arguments on thefe points, delivered by learned counfel on both fides.

The firft point involves in it the fovereign rights of the feparate States on the one hand, and the fupreme power of the United States in Congrefs affembled on the other; and is, indeed, a momentous queftion ; which, however, we fhall fhew in the decifion of the third point, to be unneceffary, and, perhaps, improper for us to decide upon.

On the fecond point, it is proper to declare, that we think ourfelves indifpenfably bound to give full faith and credit to the legal acts of our Sifter States ; and that the judgments given in their Rh