The Panama

Citations

• 176 U.S. 535
• 20 S. Ct. 480
• 44 L. Ed. 577
• 1900 U.S. LEXIS 1755

Syllabus

<p>No general rule of international law exempts mail ships from capture as prize of war.</p> <p>A Spanish mail steamship, carrying mail of the.-Unitecl States from New York to Havana at the time of the breaking out of the recent war with Spain, was not exempt from capture by the sixth clause of the President’s proclamation of April 2C, 1898.</p> <p>At the time of the breaking out of the recent war with Spain, a Spanisli mail steamship was on a voyage from New York to Havana, carrying a general cargo^ passengers and mails, and having mounted on board two breech-loading Hontoria guns of nine centimetre bore, and one Maxim rapid-firing gun, and having also on board twenty Remington rifles and ten Mauser rifles, with ammunition for all the guns and rifles, and thirty _or forty cutlasses. Her armament had been put on board more than a year before, for her own defence, as required by her owner’s mail contract with the Spanish Government, which also provided that, in case of war, that government might take possession of the vessel with her equipment, increase her .armament, and use her as a war vessel, and, in these and other provisions, contemplated her use for hostile purposes in time of war. Held, that she was not exempt from capture as prize of war by the fourth clause of the President’s proclamation of April 26, 1898.</p>