US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS
THE EDWARD, 14 U. S. 261 (1816)
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The Edward, 14 U.S. 1 Wheat. 261 261 (1816)
The Edward
14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 261
Syllabus
In revenue or instance causes, the circuit court may, upon appeal, allow the introduction of a new allegation into the information by way of amendment.
Where merits clearly appear on the record in an admiralty cause, it is the settled practice not to dismiss the libel, but to remand the cause and to allow the party to assert his rights in a new allegation.
But where a libel for a forfeiture is so informal and incorrect that the court cannot enter up a decree upon it, and the evidence discloses a case of forfeiture, this Court will remand the cause to the court below with directions to allow it to be amended.
Under the 3d section of the Act of 28 June, 1809, c. 217, every vessel bound to a foreign permitted port was obliged to give bond with condition not to proceed to any port with which commercial intercourse was not permitted, nor to trade with such port.
The offense charged in the information filed in this case in the District Court of Massachusetts is that the ship Edward, on 12 February, 1810, departed from the port of Savannah chanrobles.com-red
with a cargo, bound to a foreign port with which commercial intercourse was not permitted, without a clearance and without giving a bond in conformity with the provisions of the Act of Congress of 28 June, 1809. A claim was interposed by George Scott of Savannah in which he alleged that the ship did not depart from Savannah bound to a foreign port in manner and form as stated in the information. The district court condemned the ship, from which sentence an appeal was taken to the circuit court, where the district attorney was permitted by the court to amend the information by filing a new allegation that Liverpool, in Great Britain, was the foreign port to which the ship was bound when she departed from Savannah, and that she did so depart without having a clearance, agreeably to law. The circuit court affirmed the sentence, and the cause was brought before this Court upon an appeal. chanrobles.com-red
