Colonel Benjamin Gumbes, - Appellant; an Award of the Commissioners for Liquidating the Claims of British Subjects on France
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judgment Date | 18 June 1834 |
| Date | 18 June 1834 |
| Court | Privy Council |
English Reports Citation: 12 E.R. 524
Privy Council
Mews' Dig. tit. War; 4. War Indemnity; Who Entitled to.
[369] COLONEL BENJAMIN GUMBES,-Appellant; An AWARD of the COMMISSIONERS for LIQUIDATING the CLAIMS of BRITISH SUBJECTS on FRANCE * [June 18, 1834]. In estimating the compensation due for the loss of sugar estates unduly held under sequestration for a number of years, and of the actual produce of which during that time there was no evidence; held, that the allowance of £10 per annum for each negro on the estate is not a right principle to proceed upon [2 Knapp, 383]. Semble: That the proper principle to proceed on, under such circumstances, would be to ascertain the average number of hogsheads of sugar such estates * Present: The Vice-Chancellor [Sir Lancelot Shadwell], Mr. Baron Parke, Mr. Justice Bosanquet, the Chief Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy [the Hon. Thomas Erskine]. 524 GUMBES' CASE [1834] II KNAPP, 870 usually produced, and to award compensation for the value of that number in each year, after deducting a proper sum for the expenses of cultivation [2 Knapp, 384]. A country reconquered from an enemy reverts to the same state that it was in before its conquest. The British inhabitants of a part of the French dominions which was conquered by the Dutch, and afterwards reconquered by the French, ought therefore to have had, after its reconquest, the same protection that they were entitled to under the treaty of commerce of 1786, and were awarded compensation in respect of losses, after the reconquest, by sequestration of their property, in contravention of that treaty by the French Government [2 Knapp, 382]. The Island of St. Martin's, previously to the French Revolution, belonged partly to the French and partly to the Dutch. A great part of the planters in both parts of the island were British subjects. In the month of May 1793, the Dutch took possession of the French part of the island, and the whole of it remained under their government until the 5th of April 1795. On that day Victor Hugues, the delegate of the French Republic to the West Indies, arrived off the island with a large French force. He immediately informed the Dutch governor that the whole of Holland had been conquered by the French Republic, but that France did not treat Holland as a conquered country, and invited him to accept the terms of a convention, threatening, at the same time, that if the Dutch West Indians should renounce their country, their colonies should [370] be treated as countries conquered from rebels, the effects of the Dutch and foreign inhabitants should be confiscated to the use of the Republic, and they themselves punished as French emigrants, traitors to their country. The principal articles of this convention were, that the " French national flag should fly in all the forts on the right side of the Dutch flag; that the military duties should be divided between the French and the Dutch, the chief command being entrusted to French officers; that all offices, as well military as of justice and administration, should be exercised as theretofore, but in the name of the States-General, legally elected by the people; that the Dutch citizens should assemble to confirm or nominate all these officers, and should take an oath of fidelity to the French Republic and to the States-General, legally elected by the people; that the duties should be collected as theretofore in the name of the States-General lawfully elected, but that every month a sum of 12,000 dollars should be paid into the hands of the Treasurer of the Republic, for the wages and rations of the French garrisons of St. Eustatiusi and St. Martin's; that all expenses of repairing the fortifications should be borne by the colony; that no supplies or contributions should be raised by the French during all the time they should be in garrison there; and that the colony should be divided as theretofore between the Dutch and the French." The only article in it, which noticed the British residents was one which provided that the English and French, naturalized since 1789, should be disarmed. The Dutch governor accepted the terms of this convention. After the surrender of the island, little distinction appears, however, to have been made by the repub-[371]-lican commanders between the French and the Dutch parts of it: and on the 24th of the same month of April 1795, a decree was issued for the confiscation of all the property of British subjects in both parts, who had not been naturalized previously to 1789. The French authorities accordingly seized and confiscated all their plantations, together with the slaves, stock and personal property on them. The plantations were held by the French Government as national property until the month of March 1801, when the island was taken possession of by the English, and they were restored to their right owners. By the 12th article of the convention, No. 7, of the 20th November 1815 [Herts. Comm. Treat, i. 291], six months' time only was allowed to the persons residing in the . West Indies to send in their claims. The existence of this convention was not known in St. Martin's until the month of March 1816, and only two British residents there, of the name of Hodge, who took advantage of the departure of a ship, immediately after the arrival of the London Gazette containing it, were able to prefer their claims within the proper time. Both these gentlemen claimed, before the Commissioners, compensation for the produce of their estates during the time they were in 525 II KNAPP, 372 GUMBES' CASE [1834] the possession of the French Government, upon an average of their produce during the three years preceding their sequestration. Evidence was produced of the value of their crops during those years, and the Commissioners awarded both these claimants the full amount of their claims. In 1826, after all the claims which had been brought in within the prescribed time had been investigated and satisfied, there remained a considerable surplus of the fund, which had been paid over by the French to [372] the British Government, for the purpose of liquidating them. The Lords of the Treasury then, by a letter, dated the 5th of May 1826, directed the Commissioners to investigate the claims which had not been delivered within proper time, " upon the same principles, in all respects, as they had investigated the claims preferred within due time, and after they had ascertained the amount of the principal, to compute the simple interest due thereon, after the rate of 3 per cent, from the time of sequestration to the 24th of June...
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