. H. Baars & Co., a corporation of Delaware, filed in the court below a libel in rem against the British steamship Adriatic, and a libel in personam against the owners, W. H. Cockerline & Co., a British concern, to recover damages which it
Before the case came on for trial, but long after the vessel had been released from arrest under bond given by the owners, a suggestion was filed by counsel for the British Embassy, appearing as amici curiae, to the effect, among other things, that the steamship, which was of British registry and belonged to suhjects of Great Britain, had been “duly requisitioned by the British Admiralty, which is an integral part of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” and that the requisition was “a governmental action by the government of Great Britain, and should not be inquired • into by” the court in which the cause was pending. Considerable testimony was taken by the respondents as to the legality of the requisition and as to the effect of a refusal by the master of the vessel or the owners to obey the instructions of the Admiralty and of the British consul general at Philadelphia, and as to what the British government could have done to compel obedience to them. No testimony was offered by the libelants on any of these points.
It must be considered as established, therefore, that the vessel was actually requisitioned by the British government, acting through the Admiralty, before the time arrived for her to perform the charter. The charter party contained the following clause, viz.: “If vessel be requisitioned by the British Admiralty, this charter is to be null and void.” As the vessel was requisitioned by the British Admiralty, that provision of the charter party would seem to relieve * absolutely the owners from any liability growing out of her failure to perform the charter. The libelants contend, however, that it does not have tha.t effect, because, as it is claimed, the British Admiralty had no power, under the English law, to requisition the vessel when the attempt to do so was made, because she was then upon the high seas and not within the British Isles or the waters adjacent thereto. Of course, that contention, if correct, to have any effect, must necessarily be predicated upon the assumption that the provision in question of the charter party referred only to such requisitions of the British Admiralty as should be strictly legal and in accordance with the laws of Great Britain, as distinguished from requisitions which might in fact be made by the Admiralty, but which were beyond its legal power and authority to make.