Samuel Irvine and Peter Forbes, Plaintiffs v. Herman J. Redfleld

This case comes to this court under a certificate of division of opinion from the Circuit Court of the United States for the southern district of the State of New York. The point made is, 'whether, by the period of exportation of merchandise from a foreign country to the United States, as used in the act of Congress entitled, 'An act to amend the acts regulating the appraisement of imported merchandise, and for other purposes, approved the 3d March, 1851, was to be taken to mean the time when the merchandise had been laden aboard a general ship, and the bill of lading therefor given in the foreign port, or at the time when said ship actually departed from said foreign port, destined to the United States.' The facts in the record are, that the ship Henry Buck was a general ship at the port of Glasgow, in Scotland, in the month of May, 1855, destined for the port of New York, in the United States. That the plaintiff, on the 9th May, 1855, bought three hundred tons of Coltness pig iron, at the then wholesale market price of sixty-four shillings sterling per ton, and immediately commenced to load the same aboard the ship, and that the iron was all laden and bills of lading given for it on the 22d May, 1855, on which day the market price of such iron had risen to sixty-nine shillings per ton; that the ship remained in port, and sailed from Glasgow on the fourth of June, 1855, on which day the market price of such iron had risen to seventy-four shillings and sixpence sterling per ton; and that, on the arrival of the ship in the United States, the iron was appraised at the custom-house at the market price of twenty-four shillings and sixpence sterling per ton. On that valuation the defendant collected duty, and twenty per cent. on such value, in conformity with the 8th section of the act of Congress entitled, 'An act reducing the duty on imports, and for other purposes,' approved the 30th July, 1846.