HIGH COURT of ERRORS and APPEALS, of Pennʃylvania.
TALBOT qui tam, &c. verʃus The COMMANDERS and OWNERS of three Brigs.[♦]
T
HIS was an appeal from a decree in the Admiralty on the following cafe:—Silas, Talbot, commander of the armed floop Argos, belonging to, and in the fervice of thefe States, duly commiffioned, failed from New-London, in the State of Connecticut, the twenty-ninth of Auguʃt, 1779, on a cruife. On the ʃixth of September, after an engagement of three hours, he took a prize upon the High Seas, an armed Letter of Marque veffel, called the Betʃey, of two hundred tons burthen, with a valuable cargo, belonging to fubjects of Great-Britain, not being inhabitants of Bermuda, and bound for New-York, then in poffeffion of the Britiʃh naval and land forces. He took the commander and eleven of the people out of the prize, leaving three in her, and put on board a Prize-mafter and eleven other hands, with inftructions to proceed to New-London. The firing was heard, and the engagement for more than an hour feen by perfons on board three Letter of Margue Brigs that had lately failed from Philadelphia. During the engagement that Betʃley was perceived from the three Birgs, bearing toward them. Her furrender was alfo feen on board them. The prize-mafter in obedience to this inftructions, proceeded on his voyage in company with Argo for New-London. Some time after the three Brigs
[♦]For the decree in the Admiralty in this cafe, and the evidence upon which it was principally founded, I beg leave to refer the Render to a fmall volume of Reports of Cafes in the Admiralty of Pennʃylvania, publifhed by the (illegible text) Francis Hopkinʃon, Eʃquire, the Judge of the Court ; and printed by (illegible text)in Philadelphia. In this book will, likewife, be founded feveral important (illegible text) queftions of Hypothocation.
