Opinion of the court. shows that the master has absconded. They have introduced no one who knew what the real destination of the vessel was except one of the consignees, and his testimony is unsatisfactory, and, in many respects, utterly incredible. 5. Unusual as was the conduct of the owner of the vessel, in omitting to present any claim for the same, it was even more so in the course adopted by him to enable the attaching creditors to obtain judgment against him for a debt contracted only four days before he was sued. On the day after the arrival of the vessel, the master borrowed thirty dollars of Messrs. T. & J. Coggeshall to pay the crew; and on the fifteenth of July following, he borrowed of the same parties the sum of eighty dollars; and on the eighteenth of the same month the further sum of fifty dollars for the same purpose. He paid the crew, and they were discharged; and thereupon he drew a sight-draft on the owner to reimburse the lenders, and the amount was promptly paid. Attaching Preditors, James E. Ward & Co., sued out a writ of attachment against the owner of the vessel, on the 19th day of July, 1861, alleging the damages in the sum of five hundred dollars; but the amount for which the suit was brought is only for the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars, and consists of two items, one dated July the thirteenth, and the other July the fifteenth, and both are for cash advanced to the master of the vessel to pay off the crew. Plaintiffs in that suit, it will be remembered, were the agents of the owner in putting up and despatching the vessel at the inception of the voyage, and they were the shippers of the hardware and the tasajo, as appears by the manifest. Return was made upon the attachment suit on the 20th day of July, 1861, and the proofs show that the defendant in the suit refused to allow counsel to continue the case, and consented that the plaintiff's should have judg ment. Taken as a whole, the circumstances attending that suit and its prosecution afford strong grounds to infer that the purpose of the suit was to furnish the means of defeating the jurisdiction of the District Court. Both the District and the Circuit Courts were of the Opinion of the court. opinion, that the facts and circumstances to which reference has been made afford a clear presumption that the allegations of the libel are true, and in that view of the case we entirely concur. Doubt cannot be entertained that the evidence of guilty purpose, from the inception of the voyage to the time when the vessel was compelled by stress of weather to sail for Newport, is abundantly sufficient to overcome every presumption of innocence to which any such voyage can be entitled, and to establish the truth of the charges under consideration as contained in the libel. Suits of this description necessarily give rise to a wide range of investigation, for the reason, that the purpose of the voyage is directly involved in the issue. Experience shows that positive proof in such cases is not generally to be expected, and for that reason among others the law allows a resort to circumstances as the means of ascertaining the truth. Circumstances altogether inconclusive, if separately considered, may, by their number and joint operation, especially when corroborated by moral coincidences, be sufficient to constitute conclusive proof. Applying that rule to the present case, we have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the finding in the court below was correct. II. Appellants contend, in the second place, that the District Court had no jurisdiction of the case. 1. Because the vessel and cargo, as they insist, were in the custody of an officer of a State court at the time the monition was served by the marshal. 2. Because the wrongful acts, if committed at all, were committed in the District of New York, and not in the district where the libel was filed. Three answers are made by the United States to the first objection to the jurisdiction of the court. First. They deny the fact, that either the vessel or cargo was ever in the exclusive possession of the officer of the State court. Secondly. They insist that the attachment suit was a collusive one between the appellants and the owner of the vessel, and that the same was only prosecuted as the means. of defeating the jurisdiction of the Federal courts. Opinion of the court. Thirdly. They contend that the possession of the sheriff under civil process from a State court, as supposed by the appellants, will not prevent the operation of the laws of the United States in suits of forfeiture, or oust the admiralty jurisdiction of the Federal courts in a case like the present, where the forfeiture is made absolute by statute, because in such a case the forfeiture relates back to the time of the commission of the wrongful acts, and takes date therefrom, and not from the date of the decree. 1. Undoubtedly it was decided by this court in the case of Taylor et al. v. Carryl,* that where a vessel had been seized under a process of foreign attachment issuing from a State court, the marshal, under process from the admiralty, issued from the District Court of the United States, in a libel for seamen's wages, could not take the property out of the custody of the sheriff; but in that case the sheriff had the prior and exclusive possession of the property. The undisputed facts, however, in this case are otherwise. Immediately on the arrival of the vessel at Newport the collector placed a custom-house officer on board of her, and that officer was in the actual possession of the vessel and cargo when the attachment was made. Both vessel and cargo were then in the custody of the United States, and so in fact remained until the same were sold by the marshal by the order of the Circuit Court. By order of the district attorney, the collector, some days before the libel was filed, made a formal seizure of the vessel for a violation of the slave-trade acts; and at that time the revenue officer who had taken possession of the vessel before she was attached, still had her in custody, and he remained in possession of her until the sale, when the proceeds were paid into the registry of the court. Under these circumstances it is clear, we think, that the case of Taylor et al. v. Carryl does not apply, and that the seizure was rightfully made. 2. Our conclusion also is, from the evidence, that the suit of the appellants was a collusive one; and upon that ground, * 20 Howard, 583. Statement of the case. also we are inclined to hold that the objection of the appellants must be overruled. Having come to that conclusion, it is unnecessary to examine the third answer presented by the United States to this objection. III. Remaining objection of the appellants to the jurisdiction is, that the wrongful acts, if any, were committed out of the district where the libel was filed. But there is no merit in the objection, as the rule is well settled, that libels in rem may be prosecuted in any district where the property is found. Such was the rule laid down by this court in the case of The Propeller Commerce ;* and it is clear, beyond controversy, that the present case is governed by the rule there laid down. The decree of the Circuit Court is therefore AFFIRMED. ALBANY BRIDGE CASE. COLEMAN filed a bill in equity in the Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York, to enjoin the Hudson River Bridge Company from building a bridge over the Hudson River at Albany, under an authority which had been granted by the Legislature of the State of New York. The Circuit Court dismissed the bill. On appeal here the whole matteras well the general question of the constitutional right of a State to pass a law authorizing the erection of bridges over navigable rivers of the United States, as the more special question, whether the navigation of the Hudson would be practically obstructed by this bridge, as it was proposed to erect the same-was fully and most ably argued by Mr. Secretary of State Seward, and the Honorable Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, M. C., in favor of the right to build, and by Messrs. Carlisle and Senator Reverdy Johnson, contra. But the court being equally divided, no opinion on any point was given, and the decree so stood a * 1 Black, 581. DECREE AFFIRMED OF NECESSITY.† For the nature and effect of a decree of this sort, see Krebbs v. Carlisle Bank, 2 Wallace, Jr. 49. note. Statement of the case. MRS. ALEXANDER'S COTTON. 1. The principle, that personal dispositions of the individual inhabitants of enemy territory as distinguished from those of the enemy people generally, cannot, in questions of capture, be inquired into, applies in civil wars as in international. Hence, all the people of any district that was in insurrection against the United States in the Southern rebellion, are to be regarded as enemies, except in so far as by action of the Government itself that relation may have been changed. 2. Our Government, by its act of Congress of March 12th, 1863 (12 Stat. at Large, 591), to provide for the collection of abandoned property, &c., does make distinction between those whom the rule of international law would class as enemies; and, through forms which it prescribes, protects the rights of property of all persons in rebel regions who, during the rebellion, have, in fact, maintained a loyal adhesion to the Government; the general policy of our legislation during the rebellion having been to preserve, for loyal owners obliged by circumstances to remain in rebel States, all property or its proceeds which has come to the possession of the Government or its officers. 3. Cotton in the Southern rebel districts-constituting as it did the chief reliance of the rebels for means to purchase munitions of war, an element of strength to the rebellion-was a proper subject of capture by the Government during the rebellion on general principles of public law relating to war, though private property; and the legislation of Congress during the rebellion authorized such captures. 4. Property captured on land by the officers and crews of a naval force of the United States, is not "maritime prize;" even though, like cotton, it may have been a proper subject of capture generally, as an element of strength to the enemy. Under the act of Congress of March 12th, 1863, such property captured during the rebellion should be turned over to the Treasury Department, by it to be sold, and the proceeds deposited in the National Treasury, so that any person asserting ownership of it may prefer his claim in the Court of Claims under the said act; and on making proof to the satisfaction of that tribunal that he has never given aid or comfort to the rebellion, have a return of the net proceeds decreed to him. In the spring of 1864, a conjoint expedition of forces of the United States, consisting of the Ouachita and other gunboats, with their officers and crews, under Rear Admiral Porter, and a body of troops under Major-General Banks, proceeded up the Red River, a tributary of the Mississippi, and which empties into that river three hundred and thirty |