The June) about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, by J. and M. Moody and T. Duckles, and at the same time a memorandum of the transfer by all the four was indorsed on the certificate of registry, and was signed by the three; but neither the bill of sale nor the memorandum was signed or executed by R. Duckles until the 15th of June following. The hours for transacting business at the custom-house at Hull are from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon. On the 11th of June, at a quarter before two in the afternoon, a true copy of the memorandum, indorsed on the certificate of registry, and signed by the three as aforesaid, was left with the proper officer of the custom-house in Hull to be entered, and on the 15th of June another copy of the memorandum, with the signatures of the four, was left for the same purpose. sheriff and his officer did not retain possession of the ship, but abandoned it, and afterwards the defendant returned nulla bona. The present action was brought against him by the plaintiff's for a false return, but the Court of King's Bench were of opinion that he acted properly in abandoning the brig. Lord Ellenborough observed, I confess that I have always thought the things required to be done by the act were in their nature conditions subsequent. What is required to be done within ten days, must undoubtedly be done within ten days; but where no time is limited, the act must be done within a reasonable time. Lord • Coke says, where no time is limited, the law appoints the time; ⚫ and he notes the diversities where a party has, during his whole life, or only a convenient time, according to the subject-matter: and certum est quod certum reddi potest: a reasonable time is as capable of being ascertained by evidence, and when ascertained, is as fixed and certain as if fixed by the act of parliament. In this case, all that was required to be done by the parties to the transfer was done by three of them, one of the three being the person whose share is now in question; and what was done by them was done as near as may be instanter, for the copy of the indorsement was left with the ' officer the next day after executing the bill of sale and signing the indorsement; but it appears that one of the parties did not execute 'till afterwards, but still, when he executed, he did it within a reasonable time, and all was perfected before the return of the writ.' Bayely, J. said, referring to the statutes, the true construction of these acts seems to be this that the bill of sale shall be holden to transfer the property from the time of its exe cution, but shall be liable to become void ex post facto, that is, "if the party does not comply with the requisitions of the statute within a reasonable time, upon the failure of which the statute 'makes the sale null and void,' Dampier, J. also said, 'It seems to me that these are conditions 'subsequent; there are no words in the act to shew that they ' ought to be taken as conditions precedent. The efficient act is the bill of sale, which is to be void if the requisites of the statute ' are not complied with afterwards. That falls precisely within 'the definition of a condition subsequent. It must be left to the 'court and jury to say whether there has been a compliance within 6 a reasonable time, and in what manner the condition has been 'performed. Here the requisites have been complied with within ' a reasonable time, and therefore it seems to me that the bill of sale is valid,' Palmer v. Moxon, 2 M. and S. 43. 110. (2.) We have next to mention the cases which have occurred upon that part of the statutes which applies to sales made while the ship is at sea, or absent from the port to which she belongs, 26 Geo. III. c. 60, § 17. 34 Geo. III. c. 68, § 14, and 16. 111. The following case has been decided by the Court of Ses sion. Margaret Muir lent Macguffie L.500, and on the 4th March, 1803, she received in security a vendition ex facie absolute of the brigantine Diamond of Greenock. The ship had sailed from Greenock on the day preceding, and did not return till the month of April following. No indorsement was made upon the certificate of registry after the ship's return to port. On the 28th June thereafter, arrestments were used against Macguffie by the British Linen Company, to whom he was indebted, and the ship in question was, inter alia, arrested. On 2d July, Mrs. Muir obtained a new certificate of registry in her own name from the customhouse at Greenock. On 22d August, Macguffie's estate was sequestrated, and a process of reduction was raised by the trustee, for the purpose of having the vendition to Mrs. Muir set aside, The court, with the exception of one judge, were of opinion that the acts of Parliament had not been obeyed; that the regular steps were not taken at all, nor was any thing done till long after the time limited by statute; and that the obtaining of the new certificate was inept, and was not the proceeding which was imperatively pointed out by law where a ship was sold under the circumstances in question, and therefore they reduced the vendition, Spence v. Muir, 20th Jan. 1809. 112. The following cases have been decided in England, where the sale took place during the absence of the ship from her port. The case of Moss v. Charnock was an action of trover for a ship, brought by the plaintiffs, assignees of Kirkpatrick, a bankrupt, against the defendant, who claimed two-third parts of it as the vendee of Kirkpatrick before his bankruptcy. The facts of the case were shortly these: Kirkpatrick being indebted to the defendant in more than the value of his share of the ship, in August made a bill of sale thereof (the ship being then at sea) to the defendant, and sent it to him; but the defendant declined accepting it till the 15th of November, 1800, and on the 19th, Kirkpatrick became a bankrupt. On 5th December, and not before, the requisites of the act 34 Geo. III. c. 68. § 16. were complied with, the ship being still at sea, and within ten days after she returned to port, an indorsement was made in terms of the act, and the other requisites complied with. At the time of the bankruptcy, the bill of sale of two-thirds of the ship from the former owners to Kirkpatrick remained in his possession. The jury having found for the plaintiffs, and a new trial having been moved for, it was resisted on two grounds, one of which only applies to the present subject, viz. that the requisites of the statute 34 Geo. III. c. 68. not having been complied with before the bankruptcy, the sale was not complete at that time, and, consequently, the defendant could not now retain the ship. Upon this objection, Mr. Justice Lawrence, who delivered the opinion of Le Blanc, J. and himself, said, ' One of the great objects of the statutes 26 and 34 Geo. III. was to prevent foreigners being "concerned in British ships, without being subject to the disad⚫vantages belonging to that character; and (as the most effectual • means of coming at an immediate knowledge of such transfer) has made the validity of the transfer of every ship or vessel, with • a very few exceptions, depend upon the compliance with cer<tain circumstances which must convey to the public the fullest in'formation on that subject. The words of the statute 34. Geo. III. c. 68. §16. as they respect the case before us are, [Here the learned judge quoted the clause from the act.] Such being the words of "the act, the public will be most effectually served by holding that 'no interest shall pass from any owner in British ships to any other ' until the public has that information which is so essential to its 'commercial welfare; and the objects of the parties to such con'tract will be best consulted by allowing the longest time to com'ply with the requisites of the act, so as that which was meant to ⚫ operate as a certain means of compelling men to give that infor⚫mation be not destroyed or weakened. And this will be done by 'construing the statute as enacting that no bill of sale or other 'such instrument shall have any operation or effect until the re•quisites imposed on the parties to the sale are complied with; and by not allowing any relation to hold good so as to make the convey'ance effectual from any antecedent time. By such construction the 'parties to the contract will be most strongly called on to comply im'mediately with the requisites of the act, which, not only from its ge❝neral scope, but from the words of it, it is evident were intended to "be done without delay. And the purchaser will not lose the benefit ' of his contract, if at any time he comply with the requisites be 'fore the rights of others intervene. But if this act were to be 'considered as giving an indefinite time for the compliance with its <requisites, it would enable a transfer of property to be made to foreigners, who might remain concealed owners until the return ' of the vessel to her port, which might not be for a great length ' of time. Or, if the act is to be understood as allowing a certain ' reasonable time for complying with the requisites after the exe 'cution of the bill, or other contract of sale, and by any inadvert ence that time should be exceeded, (as to the extent of which "there may be very different opinions,) the consequence would be, that the sale would be for ever null and void, however great the 'damage might be to the purchaser.' The learned judge then proceeded to shew the distinction between the case now under consideration, and the cases of enrolments of bargains and sales under the statute 27 H. VIII. to which it had been compared, and concluded by giving it as the opinion of the Court, that there should not be a new trial, Moss v. Charnock, 2 East, 399. 113. Lord Chief Justice Abbott, upon this judgment, has said, 'I apprehend the learned Judge must be understood to speak 'with reference to the facts of the case before the Court, of such ' requisites only as may, according to the circumstances of the ⚫ transaction, be immediately complied with, and did not mean to 'intimate, that if Charnock had delivered a copy of his bill of 'sale to the officers before the bankruptcy of Kirkpatrick, so as to ' have enabled them to make the proper indorsement on the affidavit, he would not thereby have acquired an inchoate title, 'which might have been perfected by the indorsement made on the certificate within ten days after the ship's return.' Abbott, 60. 114. Accordingly, it will be seen that the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Lawrence in the above case has been much commented upon. The view which has latterly been taken of the subject wilk be seen from the following cases. As to In Mestaer v. Gillespie, the Lord Chancellor said, the generality of the proposition stated by a very able Judge ' in Moss v. Charnock, a very full consideration of all that must be held the doctrine under this act of Parliament leads me to doubt whether that must not be qualified; otherwise there has ⚫ been a great miscarriage certainly in courts of equity, conceiv ing that there is an analogy between this and the annuity act. The proposition, as stated in that judgment, goes to this extent, ' that if a man sold a ship at sea, the vendee having done every thing required by the act that could be done, but afterwards, be'fore the arrival of the ship in port, an act of bankruptcy was com ❝mitted by the vendor, the assignees under the commission of bank'ruptcy, not the vendee, would take the ship. The proposition is ❝ not so stated in terms; but the language in which the judgment is expressed covers that case. I cannot concur in that, and I apprehend the proposition, that the grant of an annuity is good for nothing, if a bankruptcy takes place before enrolment, would have ⚫ been a considerable surprise upon Lord Thurlow. My obser⚫vation does not apply to the actual decision of that case,' Mestaer v. Gillespie, 11 Ves. 637. In like manner, in the case of Hubbard v. Johnston in the Exchequer Chamber, Mr. Baron Wood expressed his dissent from the doctrine delivered in Moss v. Charnock. He says, By stat. 34 G. III. c. 68, § 14, it is enacted, that no transfer, contract, ' or agreement, for transfer of property in any ship or vessel, shall be valid or effectual for any purpose whatever, either in law or equity, unless made by bill of sale, or instrument in writing, 'containing such recital as prescribed by the act 26 Geo. III. • When a bill of sale is made in writing, truly reciting the certi'ficate of registry, according to this section, it is as I conceive, a good and valid bill of sale, and transfer of property, as between • vendor and vendee, from the moment of its execution, and needs ❝ nothing more to perfect it; yet still it may be defeated, or rendered void by the non-performance of certain subsequent acts ❝ required to be done on the part of the vendee, where it is ex'pressly so declared.' And again, after stating that a difficulty in the case then under judgment was attempted to be obviated |