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Harmony (2 Rob. 324), "that can be laid down generally, I may venture to hold that time is the grand ingredient in constituting domicil; I think that hardly enough is attributed to its effects; in most cases it is unavoidably conclusive; it is not unfrequently said, that if a person comes only for a special purpose, that shall not fix a domicil. This is not to be taken in an unqualified latitude, and without some respect had to the time which such a purpose may or shall occupy; for if the purpose be of a nature that may probably, or does actually, detain the person for a great length of time, I cannot but think that a general residence might grow upon the special purpose. A special purpose may lead a man to a country, where it shall detain him the whole of his life. A man comes here to follow a law suit; it may happen, and, indeed, is often used as a ground of vulgar and unfounded reproach (unfounded as matter of reproach, though the fact may be true) on the laws of this country, that it may last as long as himself. Some suits are famous in our juridical history for having even outlived generations of suitors. I cannot but think that, against such a long residence, the plea of an original special purpose could not be averred; it must be inferred in such a case, that other purposes forced themselves upon him, and mixed themselves with his original design, and impressed upon him the character of the country where he resided. Suppose a man comes into a belligerent country at or before the beginning of a war, it is certainly reasonable not to bind him too soon to an acquired character, and to allow him a fair time to disengage himself; but if he continues to reside during a good part of the war, contributing, by payment of taxes

and other means, to the strength of that country, I am of opinion that he could not plead his special purpose with any effect against the rights of hostility. If he could, there would be no sufficient guard against the fraud and abuses of masked, pretended, original, and sole purposes of a long continued residence. There is a time which will estop such a plea; no rule can fix the time a priori, but such a time there must be.

"In proof of the efficacy of mere time, it is not impertinent to remark, that the same quantity of business which would not fix a domicil in a certain space of time, would, nevertheless, have that effect, if distributed over a larger space of time. Suppose an American comes to Europe with six contemporary cargoes, of which he had the present care and management, meaning to return to America immediately; they would form a different case from that, of the same American, coming to any particular country of Europe, with one cargo, and fixing himself there to receive five remaining cargoes, one in each year successively. I repeat, that time is the great agent in this matter; it is to be taken in a compound ratio, of the time and the occupation, with a great preponderance on the article of time. Be the occupation what it may, it cannot happen, but with few exceptions, that mere length of time shall not constitute a domicil." (See also The Ann Greene and Cargo, 1 Gallison, 284.)

So, in The Diana (5 Rob. 60), Lord Stowell decided "that mere recency of establishment would not avail, if the intention of making a permanent residence there was fully fixed upon the party." In The Venus (8 Cranch, 253), the decisions of the English courts on the subject of national character acquired by residence are fully confirmed by the American judges.

Where, however, there is not an intention to remain, the abode is not considered as a residence to any hostile purpose. The case of The Ocean (5 Rob. 90) was, that of a claim given on behalf of a British born subject, who had been settled as a merchant at Flushing, but who, on the appearance of approaching hostilities, had taken means to move himself, and return to England. The affidavit of the claimant stated, that, in July, 1803, he actually effected his escape, and returned to this country; that he had actually dissolved his partnership; and that he had continued to reside in Holland after the war only under the detention so unwarrantably applied to all Englishmen resident in the country of the enemy at the breaking out of hostilities. "Under these circumstances," said Lord Stowell, "it would, I think, be going farther than the principle of law requires, to conclude this person, by his former occupation, and by his constrained residence in France, so as not to admit him to have taken himself out of the effect of supervening hostilities by the means which he had used for his removal." The same point is incidentally but decisively laid down by Lord Ellenborough, in the cases of Bromley v. Heseltine (1 Camp. 76), and O'Mealy v. Wilson (ib. 482).

On the other hand, the native character easily reverts, and it requires fewer circumstances to constitute domicil in the case of a native subject, than to impress the national character on one who is originally of another country. The case of the Virginie (5 Rob. 98) was that of a M. Lappierre, who, by birth a Frenchman, was present in a French colony, where he shipped goods for France. The goods were captured, and he put in his claim as a merchant of America,

where he had resided before his coming to the French colony. Lord Stowell said: "If it could be inferred that he had been originally a French merchant, and was, at the time of shipment, resident in St. Domingo, and shipping property to old France, I should have hesitation in considering him as a Frenchman. Had the shipment been made for America, his asserted place of abode, it might have been a circumstance to be set in opposition to his present residence, and might afford a presumption that he was in St. Domingo only for temporary purposes. But this is a shipment to France, from a French colony, and if the person is to be taken as a native of France, the presumption would be, that he had returned to his native character of a French merchant."

Where a citizen, a native of the United States, emigrated before a declaration of war to a neutral country, there acquired a domicil, and afterwards returned to the United States during the war, and reacquired his native domicil, he became a redintegrated American citizen, and could not afterwards, flagrante bello, acquire a neutral domicil by again emigrating to his adopted country. (The Dos Hermanos, 2 Wheat. 76; The Ann Greene and Cargo, 1 Gallison, 284.)

Where the intention of remaining exists voluntarily and without restraint, the commercial residence is usually held to be complete, whether it be a literal and actual, or only an implied residence. In The Indian Chief (3 Rob. 12), it was objected against the claim of the captors, that the residence of an American in Calcutta was not a residence among British belligerents; that the Mogul, having the imperial rights of Bengal, the King of Great Britain does not hold the British

possessions in the East Indies in the right of the sovereignty; and that, therefore, the character of British merchants does not necessarily attach on foreigners locally resident there. This objection was thus overruled by Lord Stowell: "Taking it that such a paramount sovereignty on the part of the Mogul princes really and solidly exists, and that Great Britain cannot be deemed to possess a sovereign right there, still it is to be remembered that wherever even a mere factory is founded in the eastern parts of the world, European persons, trading under the shelter and protection of those establishments, are conceived to take their national character from that association under which they live and carry on their commerce. It is a rule of the law of nations, applying peculiarly to those countries, and is different from what prevails ordinarily in Europe and the western parts of the world, in which men take their present national character from the general character of the country in which they are resident; and this distinction arises from the nature and habit of the countries. In the western parts of the world, alien merchants mix in the society of the natives, access and intermixture are permitted, and they become incorporated to almost the full extent. But in the east, from the oldest times, an immiscible character has been kept up, foreigners are not admitted into the general body and mass of the society of the nation. They continue strangers and sojourners, as all their fathers were; not acquiring any national character under the general sovereignty of the country, and not trading under any recognised authority of their own original country, they have been held to derive their present character from that of the association or factory under whose

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