The Rio Grande

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Louisiana; the case being thus:

The Judiciary Act as amended by an act of 1803 gives appeals to this court from the Circuit Courts in admiralty causes, 'where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of $2000, exclusive of costs.'These provisions of law being in force, the steamer Rio Grande, owned, as was alleged, by persons in Mexico, being in the port of Mobile, in the Southern District of Alabama, certain material-men, on the 26th of November, 1867, filed separate libels against her in the District Court for the said district. The libels, with their numbers and the names of the libellants on the docket, were thus:

No. 221. William Otis, for $1,508 00

No. 222. Joseph Hastings, 83 75

No. 223. R. D. Post & Co., 125 00

No. 224. Lyons & Keyland, 1,411 83

No. 225. G. B. & C. B. Gwin & Co., 713 00

Upon process issued on these libels the vessel was seized by the marshal and held by him during the pendency of the proceedings in the said court.

Several other libels had apparently been filed against the same steamer. The record at least contained this entry, which, as it is referred to in what is said by the learned justice who delivered the opinion of this court, and apparently as affecting the case, is here set out: