Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE OF STAIR.

Captain Bennet
v.
The Master of the Pearl

Date: 24 July 1673

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Captain Bennet having taken the Swedish ship called the Pearl, she was adjudged prize;—whereof reduction being raised and disputed, the Lords found the ship and loading prize on these grounds:—That the ship, being bound for Amsterdam, laden with 491 fats of potashes, there were only documents aboard to show the property of 447 fats; and of these a great part was marked with several merchants' marks, and the initial letters of their names; which they found a clear evidence that the property belonged to these merchants, and not to merchants mentioned in the documents, and so were concealed enemies' goods; but if the strangers could produce a document for the whole potashes which they alleged was abstracted by the privateers and company, and whereupon the Lords ordained them to be examined, the Lords, in that case, granted joint commission for proving to whom the property of the ship and goods belonged; but the Lords found, That the skipper and two of the company being Dutch, were not, per se, reasons of adjudication, but only of seizure and trial; and that they were adminicles that the loading belonged to [the] Dutch.

Vol. II, Page 220.