CASES ADJUDGED IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT OCTOBER TERM, 1896. THE THREE FRIENDS.1 CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH When a libel in admiralty is ordered to stand dismissed if not amended within a time named, the prosecution of an appeal within that time is a waiver of the right to amend, and the decree of dismissal takes effect immediately. In admiralty cases, although the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is made final in that court, this court may require any such case to be certified for its review and determination, with the same power and authority as if it had been brought here, directly, from the District or Circuit Court; and although this power is not ordinarily to be exercised, the circumstances justified the allowance of the writ in this instance. The forfeiture of a vessel proceeded against under Rev. Stat. § 5283, does not depend upon the conviction of the person or persons charged with doing the acts therein forbidden. Neutrality, strictly speaking, consists in abstinence from any participation in a public, private or civil war, and in impartiality of conduct toward 1 The docket title of this case is The United States, Petitioner, v. The Steamer Three Friends, her engines, etc., Napoleon B. Broward and Montcalm Broward, claimants. VOL. CLXVI-1 1 Statement of the Case. both parties: but the maintenance unbroken of peaceful relations between two powers when the domestic peace of one of them is disturbed is not neutrality in the sense in which the word is used when the disturbance has acquired such head as to have demanded the recognition of belligerency; and, as mere matter of municipal administration, no nation can permit unauthorized acts of war within its territory in infraction of its sovereignty, while good faith towards friendly nations requires their prevention. The word "people," as used in Rev. Stat. § 5283, forbidding the fitting out or arming of vessels with intent that they shall be employed in the service of any foreign people, or to cruise or commit hostilities against the subjects, citizens or property of any foreign people with whom the United States are at peace, covers any insurgent or insurrectionary body conducting hostilities, although its belligerency has not been recognized. Although the political department of the government has not recognized the existence of a de facto belligerent power, engaged in hostility with Spain, it has recognized the existence of insurrectionary warfare, prevailing before, at the time, and since the forfeiture sought to be enforced in this case was incurred; and the case sharply illustrates the distinction between recognition of belligerency, and recognition of a condition of political revolt; between recognition of the existence of war in a material sense, and of war in a legal sense. The courts of the United States having been informed by the political department of the existence of an actual conflict of arms, in resistance of the authority of a government with which the United States are on terms of peace and amity, although acknowledgment of the insurgents as belligerents has not taken place, the statute is applicable to the case. The order for the release of the vessel was improvidently made, as it should not have been released. THE steamer Three Friends was seized November 7, 1896, by the collector of customs for the district of St. John's, Florida, as forfeited to the United States under section 5283 of the Revised Statutes, and, thereupon, November 12, was libelled on behalf of the United States in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The first two paragraphs of the libel alleged the seizure and detention of the vessel, and the libel then continued: "Third. That the said steamboat or steam vessel, the Three Friends,' was on, to wit, on the twenty-third day of May, A.D. 1896, furnished, fitted out and armed, with intent that she should be employed in the service of a certain people, to wit, certain people then engaged in armed resistance to the government of the King of Spain, in the island of Cuba, to cruise |