1787.
Roʃe, had been taken by a Britiʃh cruizer, and while her captors were carrying her into New-York, fhe was retaken by an American privateer. It was ferioufly contended upon that occafion, that the Dutch veffel was a lawful prize according to the words of the ordinance ; but the court would not allow fo extravagant a claim, grafted upon the ftrict letter, to pervert the politics but equitable meaning of the act of Congrefs. Let us then try whether the act of affembly, on the fubject in difcuffion, may not be a liberal interpretation, operate fo as to relieve the claimants from the injury with which they are threatened, and at the fame time promote the rational views of the legiflature. In the fection upon which the informants proceed, it is faid, ‘‘ that every veʃʃel or boat, from which any goods, wares, or merchandize shall be unloaded, before due enter thereoƒ, &c. fhall be forefeited.” Hence then, if we underftand the word thereof to refer to the entry of the veffel, though it may produce a flight deviation from the grammatical relation to the next immediate antecedent, we fhall certainly give a more reafonable and benevolent explanation to the law, than by making the veffel liable to forfeiture for the non-entry of the goods, wares, and merchandize. By the firft conftruction, a duty is impofed upon the owners, with which it is in their power to comply ; by the fecond they are expofed to lofs and ruin for the negligence or malverfation of others, which they could not forefee, and cannot prevent. The fhip, and its contents, are indeed diftinct things in their nature, and thus be rendered (as they ought to be) diftinctly refponfible for the management of thofe to whom they are entrufted. If the fhip is not entered, let the penalty fall there ; and if the cargo is not entered, let that be doomed to confication ; but the idea of making them reciprocally refponfible is contrary to natural juftice, and muft be incompatible with found policy. No foreign merchant will truft his veffel in our ports, and no citizen of Pennʃylvania will be hardy enough to engage in commerce upon fuch precarious terms. But it is to be farther obferved in this place, that the legiflature having changed the expreffion ; we may juftly infer that the object of the law was likewife changed. In the preceeding act relative to the impoft, the words “ ʃhip or veʃʃel ” are employed, and not “ veʃʃel or boat ” as in the fection above cited: it is therefore to be prefumed that it was only in contemplation to deftroy the petty fleets of fmugglers which infelt our creeks and rivers ; and as it is a maxim in law, that ‘‘ a ftatute treating of things or perfons of an inferior rank, cannot by any general words be extended to thofe of a fuperior,” a ʃhip, which in maritime affairs is of the higheft order, cannot be defignated by the fubordinate title of a veʃʃel.
There is, however, an additional and very forcible argument, to fhew that the informants are not entitled to a verdict of condemnation againft the Anna, which is drawn from the regularity of the entry that has been made. By the act of affembly, in which this
