FUNCTION AND ORGANIZATION OF PRIZE COURTS 43 
Sec. 31. The Same (Continued). In a later group of cases’ 
the naval prize tribunal held that where certain enemy vessels 
which were in Egyptian ports at the outbreak of the war, or 
entered them shortly thereafter, and which declined to leave and 
were forcibly taken out to sea by the Egyptian authorities and 
formally captured by British ships of war, the proceeds must be 
treated as “droits of the Crown” and not as “droits of the ad- 
miralty.” The argument of the Exchequer that the tribunal 
should go behind the formal captures at sea, take into con- 
sideration the anterior circumstances and hold that, in truth, the 
seizures had been made in port and consequently the proceeds 
were “droits of admiralty” was rejected, the tribunal declaring 
that it could not inquire “too minutely” into the political con- 
siderations which, owing to the peculiar position of Egypt and 
the Suez Canal convention, induced the government to adopt the 
procedure of taking the vessels out to sea, of formally capturing 
them there and of bringing them back to the ports from which 
they had been removed. 
In the same group of cases it was held that the proceeds of con- 
demned cargoes on vessels which, while passing through the 
Straits of Dover, were compelled by reason of the British sys- 
tem of patrols to go into the Downs for examination, were “droits 
of the Crown,” this on the basis of the decision in the earlier 
group of cases that it was the fear of the British navy which im- 
pelled them to enter the Downs for examination and it could be 
said therefore that the “hand of violence” had been exercised. 
An important ruling in this group of cases was that where a ship 
condemned as prize and was subsequently released by the Crown 
as an act of grace, because it turned out that the ship was a neu- 
tral vessel, the prize must according to the clear intention of the 
Naval Prize Act of 1918 be treated as a “droit of the Crown”; 
that it was immaterial that the release took place before the 
passing of the said Act and that in the circumstances a sum equal 
to the value of the vessel with interest at 5 per cent should be 
paid by the Exchequer into the naval prize fund. The principle 
involved in this case was the extent to which the Crown could 
interfere with the rights of captors by releasing their prizes or 
by discontinuing proceedings against them. The rights of the 
Crown to release a prize before adjudication or to refuse to pro- 
ceed to adjudication, their Lordships said, had always been rec- 
he Peclinzer and Other Vessels, VIII Lloyd 458; III Br. & Col. Pr 
as. |