United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

Action was raised on a policy of insurance upon the ship Friendship, insured “to the port or ports of discharge, sale, and final destination in the British or Foreign West Indies and America,” which words, the appellants contended, in the case of a ship engaged in the slave trade, were customary, and understood to cover a voyage from port to port, in search of a market, till the object of the voyage is completed.

The vessel, in consequence of the mutiny of the crew who were guilty of piracy and murder, was taken possession of by them, and the object of the voyage was thereby defeated; but the boatswain and two others, who remained honest, pretending to gratify the mutinous part of the crew by steering for Cayenne, while they made direct for Barbadoes, on arrival there handed the ship and crew over to the government authorities.

The master, with seven of the crew, had been put on shore in the whale boat, but the master procured passages, first to St. Thomas, and then to Barbadoes, where he found the Friendship, with nothing but the hull and rigging of the ship remaining. The cargo and stores were here sold by the King's agent before his arrival; and he saw at once that the intended trade to the coast of Africa was thus defeated. The appellants gave notice that they intended to abandon as for a total loss. The ship was then sold for the insurers.

In an action before the Judge Admiral, he found the appellants entitled to their demand. Of this decree a suspension was brought to the Court of Session, in which they pleaded, as to the ship, that as she sustained no injury whatever, however much the cargo may have been damaged, and the trading voyage therewith defeated on the coast of Africa, yet as the vessel arrived at Barbadoes in a better condition

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