Today in Supreme Court History: August 15

Bas v. Tingy, 4 U.S. 37 (decided August 15, 1800): During the Quasi-War with France (well depicted in the miniseries “John Adams”, with Paul Giamatti) a warship’s captain “and others” brought suit for salvage (such a suit was called a “libel” in those days) after they recovered four ships which had been lost to French privateers three weeks previous. This is one of those early “seriatim” decisions in which the each judge takes his turn displaying 18th-century prolixity. They hold that France was an enemy (duh) and the ships were lost for more than 96 hours, so that the salvage statute applied, giving them the full value of the ships. (Making the captain and his crew privateers as well?)