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offences committed on the high seas or abroad. The statute 18 & 19 Vict. c. 91, s. 21, enacts that if any person, being a British subject, charged with having committed any crime or offence on board any British ship on the high seas, or in any foreign port or harbour, or if any person, not being a British subject, charged with having committed any crime or offence on board any British ship on the high seas is found that is to say, is found to be at the time of his trial: R. v. Lopez, 27 L. J. (M.C.) 48-within the jurisdiction of any court of justice in Her Majesty's dominions, which would have had cognizance of such crime or offence if committed within the limits of its ordinary jurisdiction, such court shall have jurisdiction to bear and try the case, as if such crime or offence had been committed within such limits: R. v. Anderson, 11 Cox C. C. 198; see R. v. Sattler, 27 L. J. (M.C.) 50. I have already referred to statute 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, which applies to trials in England or Ireland for murder or manslaughter committed on land, whether within the Queen's dominions or without. And by statute 30 & 31 Vict. c. 124, s. 11, if a British subject commits any crime or offence on board a British ship, or on board a foreign ship to which he does not belong, any court of justice in Her Majesty's dominions, which would have had cognizance of such crime or offence if committed on board a British ship within the limits of the ordinary jurisdiction of such court, shall have jurisdiction over the case as if the said crime or offence had been committed as last aforesaid. But a foreigner who kills another foreigner abroad, on land out of the Queen's dominions, or on the high seas on board a foreign ship, is not amenable to the law of England, and cannot be tried here: R. v. Lewis, 1 Dear & B. C. C. 182. The criminal jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty was transferred to the Central Criminal Court by statute 4 & 5 Will. 4, c. 36.

By statute 10 & 11 Will. 3, c. 25, s. 13, any capital crimes whatsoever, committed in Newfoundland or the islands adjoining, may be tried in any county in England. The statute 57 Geo. 3, c. 53, enacts that murders and manslaughters committed on land at Honduras, or in any place not within the dominions of the Crown, nor subject to any European State or Power, nor within the territories of the United States, by the master or crew of any British ship, or by any person sailing or belonging thereto, or that shall have sailed in, or belonged to, and have quitted any British ship to live in any of the said places, or that shall be there living, may be tried in any of the possessions of the Crown abroad.

By statute 36 Geo. 3, c. 57, if any person shall, within the realm or without, commit treason, he shall suffer death as a traitor.

By statute 9 Geo. 4, c. 83, s. 4, jurisdiction is given to the Supreme Courts of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land over all offences committed on the sea or in any island or country in the Indian or Pacific Oceans, not subject to the British Crown, or to any European State or Power, by any British subject, having sailed in, or belonging to, or having quitted any British vessel to live in any such places, or

Crimes against foreign States.

that are there living. See also statute 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 57, as to offences committed by British subjects in territories adjacent to the colony of the Cape of Good Hope.

See statute 6 & 7 Vict. c. 80, "An Act for the better government of Her Majesty's subjects resorting to China." In 1844 an Order in Council was made authorizing British consuls in China to exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction within their districts, over British subjects within such districts, and to send such subjects charged with the commission of crimes and offences to Hong Kong for trial: M. S. Council Register, 1844, p. 220.

It was held, in an old case, that a man who had committed in Ireland the crime of abduction, which was then capital there, although not so in England, could be sent to Ireland from this country to be tried: Kimberley's Case, 2 Stra. 848; see Lundy's Case, 2 Vent. 314.

As to an arrest made in a foreign country with a view to a subsequent trial here, see Mure v. Kaye, 4 Taunt. 34; Ex parte Scott, 9 B. & C. 446. With respect to murder or manslaughter committed in foreign territory, see R. v. Depardo, Russ. & Ry. 134 (where the prisoner was an alien who had killed a British subject on shore at Canton); R. v. Sawyer, ibid. 224; R. v. Helsham, 4 C. & P. 394 (where the prisoner, a British subject, had killed another British subject in a duel in France); R. v. De Mattos, 7 C. & P. 458; R. v. Azzopardi, 2 Moo. C. C. 288; R. v. Anderson, 11 Cox C. C. 198 (where the prisoner, a foreigner, one of the crew of a British ship, committed manslaughter on board the ship in the Garonne, within the boundaries of the Empire of France) (1).

There is no doubt that a crime committed in England against a foreign State in amity with the Crown of England-as, for instance, a plot to assassinate a friendly monarch-is punishable here. When Lord Palmerston introduced a Bill into Parliament in 1858, to amend the law with relation to the crime of conspiracy to commit murder, of which the immediate occasion was a plot against the life of the Emperor of the French organized in this country, it was rejected, because the House of Commons thought that the measure was brought forward at the dictation of a foreign Power. In reality the common law was sufficient for the purpose: see R. v. Bernard, 1 Fost. & Fin. 240. So it is a misdemeanor to subscribe in this country to aid a rebellion against a foreign Government in amity with the Crown. Lord Lyndhurst said in the House of Lords, on the 4th of March, 1853: "If a number of British subjects were to combine and conspire together to excite revolt among the inhabitants of a friendly State-of a State united in alliance with us-and these persons, in pursuance of that conspiracy, were to issue manifestoes and proclamations for the pur(1) A curious question was submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown while Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena. He was fond of ball-practice, and fired very carelessly, one day killing a bullock. Supposing he had killed a person, under circumstances which would amount to manslaughter according to English law, what was to be done with him? An opinion was given, but I have not been able to find it. (See Forsyth's Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe, vol. iii. p. 311.)

pose of carrying that object into effect; above all, if they were to subscribe money for the purpose of purchasing arms to give effect to that intended enterprise, I conceive, and I state with confidence, that such persons would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to suffer punishment by the laws of this country, inasmuch as their conduct would tend to embroil the two countries together, to lead to remonstrances by the one with the other, and ultimately it might be to war.

.... The offence of endeavouring to excite revolt among the subjects of a neighbouring State is an offence against the law of nations. No writer on the law of nations states otherwise. But the law of nations according to the decisions of our greatest judges is part of the law of England." In De Wütz v. Hendricks, 2 Bing. 315, Best, C.J., said: "It occurred to me at the trial that it was contrary to the law of nations (which in all cases of international law is adopted into the municipal code of every civilized country) for persons in England to enter into engagements to support the subjects of a Government in amity with our own, in hostilities against their Government, and that no right of action could arise out of such a transaction . . . . . . In consequence of what I said, a note has since been handed to me of a case that occurred lately in Chancery, in which the Lord Chancellor is reported to have said that English courts of justice will afford no assistance to persons who set about to raise loans for subjects of the King of Spain, to enable them to prosecute a war against that Sovereign."

The following are cases of criminal information filed against persons in this country for libels against foreign sovereigns in amity with the Crown: R. v. Lord George Gordon, 22 State Tr. 213 (a libel on the Queen of France); R. v. Vint, 27 State Tr. 627 (a libel on the Emperor Paul of Russia); R. v. Peltier, 28 State Tr. 617 (a libel upon Bonaparte when First Consul).

By the Foreign Enlistment Act (59 Gen. 3, c. 69), if any British sub- Foreign Enject, without license from the Crown, shall accept any military com- listment Act. mission (see Dobree v. Napier, 2 Bing. N. C. 781), or enlist as a soldier or a sailor in any foreign service, or shall go to any foreign country with an intent so to enlist; and if any person within the dominions of the Crown shall equip, furnish, fit out, or arm any ship or vessel for the service of any foreign State, or with intent to cruise or commit hostilities against any State with whom Her Majesty shall not then be at war, or shall issue any commission for any such vessel, or shall alter the number of guns of such vessel, or be concerned in augmenting the force of any foreign armed vessel arriving in this country, such offender shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be punished with fine or imprisonment, or both.

In an opinion given by Mr. Mellish, Q.C., in February, 1863, on the question whether the building of a vessel for the Confederate Government, during the civil war in America, was an illegal act, he said: "I am of opinion that Messrs. Laird had a right to build the ship which

has since been called the Alabama in the manner they did, and that they have committed no offence against either the common law or the Foreign Enlistment Act with reference to that ship. I am of opinion that the simple building of a ship, even although the ship be of a kind apparently adapted for warlike purposes, and delivering such ship to a purchaser in an English port, even although the purchaser is suspected or known to be the agent of a foreign belligerent Power, does not constitute an offence against the Foreign Enlistment Act (59 Geo. 3, c. 69, s. 7), on the part of the builder, unless the builder makes himself a party to the equipping of the vessel for warlike purposes. The Alabama, indeed, appears to me to have been equipped at the Azores, and not in England at all." And this opinion was confirmed by Sir Hugh Cairns and Mr. Kemplay, who added that it would not be altered if the fact were that the builders knew they were building the Alabama for an agent of the Confederate Government. See the report of the trial, Attorney General v. Sillem, “The Alexandra " (London, 1863). Parliament has no general power to legislate for foreigners out of the Parliament to dominions and beyond the jurisdiction of the British Crown, but it legislate for may fix a time within which application must be made for redress to foreigners. the courts of justice. This is matter of procedure, and becomes part of the lex fori: Lopez v. Burslem, 4 Moore, P. C. 300.

Power of

An Act was passed by Congress in 1850, to carry into effect certain stipulations in the treaties between the United States and China, Japan, Siam, Turkey, Persia, Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Muscat, by which the laws of the United States are extended over American citizens in those countries, and ministers and consuls have full judicial powers given to them. The President is authorized to appoint marshals to execute process: see Woolsey's Internat. Law, s. 65.

In an American case, Rose v. Himeley, 4 Cranch, 241, where a vessel, after trading with rebels at St. Domingo, was seized more than ten leagues from the coast by a French privateer, and taken to a Spanish port and sold, and was afterwards condemned by a French tribunal at St. Domingo under municipal law, the Court held that any seizure for breach of a municipal regulation beyond the limits of the territorial jurisdiction was not warranted by the law of nations, and invalid. “It may be said," observes Dana, in a note to Wheaton's Internat. Law, s. 180, "that the principle is settled that municipal seizures cannot be made for any purpose beyond territorial waters. It is also settled that the limit of these waters is, in the absence of treaty, the marine league, or the cannon-shot." In the case of the Cagliari in 1857, the present Queen's Advocate, Sir Travers Twiss, gave an opinion that, "in ordinary cases where a merchant ship has been seized on the high seas, the Sovereign whose flag has been violated waives his privilege; considering the offending ship to have acted with mala fides towards the other State with which he is in amity, and to have consequently forfeited any just claim to his protection."

239

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE LEX LOCI AND LEX FORI (1).

A CONTRACT valid by the law of the place where it was made is, Lex Loci. generally speaking, valid everywhere else. Rectores imperiorum id comiter agunt, ut jura cujusque populi intra terminos ejus exercita teneant ubique suam vim, quatenus nihil potestati aut juri alterius imperantis ejusque civium præjudicetur. -Huber, de Conflict Leg. ii. lib. i. tit. 3, s. 3.

The interpretation of contracts, and the legal rights arising out of them, are governed by the lex loci where they were made: Wriggleworth v. Dallison, 1 Doug. 201, 202; Holman v. Johnson, Cowp. 341; Lacon v. Hooper, 6 T. R. 224; Webb v. Plumer, 2 B. & Al. 746; De la Vega v. Vianna, 1 B. & Ad. 284; Dalrymple v. Dalrymple, 2 Hagg. Cons. R. 60, 61; Donn v. Lipman, 5 Cl. & Fin. 1; Ferguson v. Fyffe, 8 Cl. & Fin. 121; Munroe v. Pilkington, 31 L.J. (Q. B.) 81; Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company v. Shand, 3 Moore, P. C. (N. S.) 272; Leroux v. Brown, 12 C. B. 801. Where an action was brought in this country by the syndics of a French bankrupt, upon an ordinance in France whereby the defendant was adjudged to pay to the bankrupt a sum of money, the Court said: "This is a peculiar right of action created by the law of that country; and we think it may by the comity of nations be enforced in this, as much as the right of foreign assignees, or curators, or foreign corporations, appointed or created in a different way from that which the law of this country requires:" Alivon v. Furnival, 1 C. M. & R. 296; see Solomons v. Ross, 1 H. Bl. 131, note.

(1) The subject of this chapter is naturally connected with that of the preceding one; but I was not able to find any Law Officers' or other Opinions directly relating to it. I have, therefore, thought it better and more convenient to place these notes in the text.

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