THE orrr or Mexico. 37
Bio Hacha, though anomalous and inexplicable in some of its features,
was doubtless a hostile expedition in the intention of the insurgents;
though there is no explanation in the evidence of what its plans were,
and it accomplished nothing but the absurd and treacherous seizure
of a few custom-house officials, who innocently boarded the steamer
in the discharge of their duties. The captain’s agreement was that
“passengers" were to be taken aboard and landed at Bio Hacha; but
the general and 150 soldiers, who came aboard as passengers, when
they arrived off Bio Hacha, were not landed. They had not, appar-
ently, any means of landing, nor any disposition to land; and the next
morning their only anxiety seemed to be to appropriate the steamer
to their use in an attempt to capture the distant schooner.
There is not sufficient evidence before me to determine properly to
what extent Capt. O’Brien, in making the contract at Baranquilla
to carry the 250 passengers to Rio Hacha, was chargeable with
knowledge of its military and hostile character. There is nothing to
contradict his testimony that he was assured and believed that Rio
Hacha was in the possession of the insurgents, and that he had no
idea of any use of his vessel other than as a peaceable transport. If
it be said that Capt. O’Brien ought to have known, or to have ascer-
tained, whether Rio Hacha was actually in possession of the insur-
gents or not, some allowance is certainly due to him from the fact
that he was not accustomed to trade in that region, and that the po-
litical status of the provinces and cities of that coast is neither so
stable nor so notorious that a captain, not having previous dealings
with them, should have known their political afliliations. Some
inferential support of his testimony may, perhaps, be found in the
fact that the American consul at Baranquilla gave him a clearance
for that port; although the whole force of this inference would be
broken if it should appear, as may have been the fact, that the
consul had no knowledge of the purpose of the trip. If Capt. O’Brien
had no knowledge that any military demonstration was intended, but
contracted only to transport insurgent troops from one port in their
possession to another port supposed by him to be in their own pos-
session, wholly unconnected with any particular military enterprise,
it is certain that he committed no oifense against our municipal law,
and no offense even against the law of nations, save to subject his
ship to capture by the other belligerents if caught during the voyage.
But, however this may be, the contract to carry troops to Rio Hacha
was not made “within the limits of the United States. " It is only
against designs formed within these limits that our statute is di-
rected. Upon this trial, therefore, the Rio Hacha excursion has no
importance, except in two respects: First, in case it was designed in
this country; and, secondly, as regards the light, if any, that it may
shed upon the general intent with which the ship was ntted out in
New York.
There is no evidence that Rio Hacha formed any part of the orig-