wit: $12,000 in the Atlantic Insurance Co. and $7,000 in the Hope Insurance Co., of that city. In January, 1825, the Atlantic paid its policy in full, and in June following the Hope paid it's, with $175 interest, making in all $19,175, covering the full value of the goods. Soto made a formal assignment, about this time, of all and singular his rights pertaining to said goods, and growing out of the capture thereof, to the insurance companies.

It does not appear that he made any exertion to save them from capture, by the assertion of ownership as a neutral, either then or afterwards, in the prize court. It seems he abandoned them at capture. A year later, when the insurance companies were preparing their case for presentation before the Colombian Government, he made affidavit that he was a native of Spain, but a citizen of Mexico, engaged in mercantile business there, and had been since 1819; that he invoiced the goods in the name of Barry for safety, and that no Spanish subject had any interest whatever in them at the time of shipment, or afterwards, they being his sole and exclusive property.

In 1826, the Government of the United States presented the claim of the insurance companies for indemnity, in the premises, against the Government of Colombia, it being alleged that the goods were neutral, and not, as found by the court, enemy's property. But nothing was allowed by that Government.

After-upwards of 25 years after-the dissolution of Colombia (1830) and the adjustment of her liabilities between the constituent States, fifty per centum thereof falling to New Granada, the insurance companies assigned that portion of the claim which was against that State, namely, onehalf of it, to the present claimant, Amos B. Corwin.

He prosecuted the portion so assigned against that Government before the Mixed Commission under the treaty, between New Granada and the United States, of 1857, and secured an award for the amount thereof, to wit, the half of

$19,175, with interest to the date of the allowance, 1862, amounting in all to $.

In 1863, the American Minister at Caracas asked the Venezuelan Government, in behalf of Corwin, to pay its proportion of the insurance claim, to wit, 28 per centum.

The claim for that proportion was presented to the Caracas Commission of 1867-'68, which awarded him $15,629.87. It is now made before us and amounts with interest to near $30,000.

It is well settled that where there is abandonment of property under circumstances like these, and the entire loss is paid, the insurer succeeds to all the rights of the insured, of whatever kind, respecting the property, as of the time of abandonment (Phillips on Ins., § 1712 et seq. Hollbrook, adm'r, v. United States, 21st Ct. Claims, 438). The conveyance by Soto to the insurance companies, in 1825, was therefore quite superfluous. The companies were subrogated to his rights and to them only. A question suggests itself, whether, in respect to this treaty, supposing Soto to have been a Mexican, the companies do not succeed simply to the rights which he would have, if living, but for the payment of the insurance. If so, they cannot claim here, for he, not being a citizen of the United States, would have no standing under the treaty. We think, however, that it is not their status. To hold so, would be to say there may be invasion of neutral rights without remedy. Mexico refuses to interfere in Soto's behalf, for he is indemnified. It refuses the companies, for they are Americans. The United States refuses them because they have only the rights of Soto, and he has no claim on its services, for he is a Mexican.

The true view as it seems to us is, that the companies are to be regarded as having succeeded to Soto's rights at the seizure of the goods, May 6, and, of course, cum onere. If the capture was wrongful, the wrong was consummated and then

first made apparent by the judgment of the prize court, and consummated as against them. They therefore stand in respect of the wrong, not in Soto's shoes, but in their own.

They consequently have a standing here in their own. original right.

Are they bound by the judgment of the prize court?

It has been suggested in argument whether, as indeed it seems to have been claimed by the American Minister at Bogota in 1824-27 that, Colombia, having been Spanish territory at the time, was bound as to the United States by the treaty between the latter and Spain of 1795, which embodied the doctrine that "free ships make free goods," making its violation an act of piracy; and that such obligation continued during her struggle for independence. Mr. ChiefJustice Marshall, 9 Cranch, 191, said:

"The United States having formed a part of the British Empire, their prize law was ours; and when we separated it continued to be ours, so far as adapted to our circumstances, and was not varied by the power which was capable of changing it."

It is likewise probably true that the Spanish prize law, impressed, it may be, with such conventional modifications as to particular States as were from time to time made, became the prize law of the Spanish-American colonies, subject to the qualifications named. Conceding its operation as to Colombia at independence, it continued, under the principle stated, only so long as adapted to her condition, and she, of course, was the judge of that. The very act of sending out privateers to prey upon Spanish commerce was at once a determination that the Spanish prize law, with its conventional modifications as to the United States (if before in force), was not adapted to her circumstances, and at the same time a decree "varying it by her power," in conformity with international law.

The question arose in the case of the Señora, a Spanish vessel captured by a Carthagenian privateer, and taken again by an American cruiser, supposing it British, during the war of 1812.

The Supreme Court of the United States said:

"The treaty with Spain can have no bearing on the case, as this Court cannot recognize such captors [the Carthagenians] as pirates; and the capture was not made within our jurisdictional limits. In those two cases only does the treaty enjoin restitution." (4 Wheaton, 497.)

Said the same Court in case of the Pastora, a Spanish vessel captured by a privateer under the flag of La Plata, 4 Wheaton, 63, per Marshall, C. J.:

"The case of the United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheaton, 610, establishes the principle that the Government of the United States having recognized the existence of a civil war between Spain and her colonies, but remaining neutral, the courts of the Union are bound to consider as lawful those acts which war authorizes, and which the new Governments of South America may employ against their enemy."

It seems to us, therefore, clear that Spain's engagements to the United States, under the treaty of 1795, did not extend to and bind Colombia in respect of the doctrine stated, at least at the time of this capture, and that the law of nations in this regard was then her only guide, she not as yet having bound herself contrariwise by treaty.

The seizure by the Santander of the Mechanic, and the sending of her to Puerto Cabello for authoritative decision as to her cargo, under a claim of its being enemy's (Spanish) property, and the adjudication there by the Colombian prize court of the question, were, as is conceded, authorized by the law of nations. But it is contended the court found that Soto was a Spaniard, when he was in fact a Mexican, and that its judgment being predicated on that error of fact, is not binding on these companies as respects their demands against the government of the captor.

Undoubtedly a wrong done by a government through its prize courts is redressible in a proper case the same as if done through its other courts or agencies. But the wrong must be shown.

Although a prize court is summary in proceeding, acting in time of war when impartiality in procedure and decision is not, in practice, generally thought to be attained; yet its

judgments are in the eyes of the public law respected much as judgments of municipal courts are. Mr. Wheaton says:

"The theory of public law treats prize tribunals established by and sitting in the belligerent country exactly as if they were established by and sitting in the neutral country, and as if they always adjudicated conformably to the international law common to both."

The Supreme Court of the United States declared a prize tribunal

"A court of the law of nations, and takes neither its character nor its rules from the municipal law." (Schooner Adeline, 9 Cranch, 244.)

When the United States complained to Denmark because of the sentences of her prize courts affecting citizens of the United States during the war between that Power and Great Britain, it was not that those sentences were against the weight of the evidence and probably wrong; but that they, being affirmed by the court of last resort, amounted to “a denial of justice."

Mr. Wheaton, quoting with approval from the notable report of Sirs George Lee, Dudley Rider, Dr. Paul, and Mr. Murray to the British Government, 1753, on the reprisals by Prussia on account of captures by British cruisers and condemnations by British admiralty courts, says it plainly shows:

"That in the opinion of the eminent persons by whom that paper was drawn up, if justice be denied in a clear case by all the tribunals, and afterwards by the prince, it forms a lawful ground of reprisals against the nation by whose commissioned cruisers and tribunals the injury is committed."

It is only, says Vattel, "in cases where justice is refused or palpable and evident injustice is done, or rules and forms openly violated," that definite sentences should not be respected.

"The British Court," he says, "established this maxim with great strength of evidence on the occasion of the Prussian vessels seized and declared lawful prizes during the last war."

(See Crousden et al. v. Leonard, 4 Cranch, 404; Vattel, Bk. 2, § 84; The Mary, 9 Cranch, 142; 1 Wheaton, 238; Santisima Trinidad, 1 Brocke, affirmed in 7 Wheat., 283.)