42 rizonmn ruwoarnra.
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design of the expedition, and in the intent to commit hostilities. But
no intent of that kind is possibly attributable to the City of Mexico
on fitting out from New York. And it is this "fixed intent" on her
_ departure from this country that is alone material. Her designs
were purely peaceful.
In the case of U. S. v. Quincy, 6 Pet. 466, above quoted, the court
say:
"The intention is the material point on which the legality or criminality
of the act must turn, and decides whether the adventure is of a commercial
‘ or warlike character. The law does not prohibit armed vessels, belonging to
the citizens of the United States, from sailing out of our ports, and it only re-
quires the owners to give security that such vessels shall not be employed by
them to commit hostilities against foreign powers at peace with the United
States. The collectors are not authorized to detain vessels, although mani-
festly built for warlike purposes, and about to depart from the United States,
unless circumstances shall render it probable that such vessels are intended
to be employed by the owners to commit hostilities against some foreign
power at peace with the United States. All the latitude necessary for com-
mercial purposes is given to our citizens, and they are restrained only from
· such acts as are calculated to involve the country in wdr."
The voyage of the City of Mexico appears to me, beyond con-
troversy, to have been intended to be wholly peaceable. She was,
in all respects, in men and in equipment, in the same condition as
upon her customary voyages, without armament of any sort. The
port of Savanilla was in the undisputed, peaceful possession of the
insurgents. . There was no blockade, or attempted blockade, of it by
the lawful government. The sole object of the owners of the ship,
who remained all the time in possession of her, was to deliver these
military supplies at Savanilla. There was no intent to commit hos-
tilities, or even a breach of the peace; or to disturb any rights, in
person or in property, of any subject of the lawful government of
Colombia.
But for the excursion to Bio Hacha, it is improbable that any sus-
picion would have attached to the voyage. Coupled with that excur-
sion, however, the precautions against detention found in the charter,
and in the letters of instruction to the captain; the delay in filing the
supplementary manifest, which recited the shipment of arms and
military supplies taken on board at New York; and the false des-
tination of these supplies, stated in the supplemental manifest, to-
gether with the fact of the two passengers accompanying Capt. C’Brien,
under whose orders in respect to landing the supplies he was to act,
-—all these things tended to give an appearance of illegality to the
voyage in its inception, which I am nevertheless fully satished it did
not possess. The Bio Hacha incident, as I have said, was an after-
thought, into which Capt. O’Brien was himself deceived and misled.`
When he discovered that the ship was used, and was sought to be still
further used, for treacherous and hostile purposes, his conduct, so far
as I can perceive, was praiseworthy and blameless, both in resisting