ported from Guadeloupe and Martinique in payment of debts due him. Part 
of Columbier's sugars were shipped in payment of debts due him in the island 
of Martinique at the time of its evacuation by the British occupying force, and 
part were for his account in return for a portion of a cargo shipped by Columbier 
to Dominica and there sold to British merchants to be paid in sugars and 
other produce under inspection and permission of General Dalrymple and the 
acting collector and naval officers. 
The appellants relied first upon instructions left by General Dalrymple for 
his successor Captain Partridge to the effect that sugars brought from the 
French Islands "after received for the payment of our Merchants Debts" were 
to be reshipped without any duty. 129 In the second place, the sugars allegedly 
received by appellants in return for cargoes were claimed to be the objects 
of daily importation and traffic at Dominica. As to these respondent's witness, 
the collector at Roseau, had testified that he had never heard of any duty other 
than the inland duty of 1 percent being laid upon sugars landed for transfer. 130 
All the sugar had been landed before January 19, 1764, on which day Captain 
Partridge by proclamation had ordered that the proprietors and owners of all 
sugars then imported into Dominica should give bond at his Majesty's custom 
house to pay foreign duties at the post from which they should clear, on pain 
of confiscation. 131 This proclamation, it was claimed, had reference only to 
future importations. 
Respondent insisted that all the sugars were French, since no sugar cane 
was grown in Dominica. All had been landed at Dominica and on the news 
of Knowler's approach had been reshipped with a view to being cleared out 
as English sugars without payment of foreign duties, a practice prevalent in 
the island for some time after it became subject to British dominion. The 
purpose of the statute 6 George 11, c. 13, had been to put the English sugar 
trade on an equal footing with the foreign, to which end a duty of y. had been 
imposed. This duty was made payable in ready money by the importer before 
landing; otherwise the goods were forfeit. Here it was admitted the sugars 
were foreign, and as the s*. duty had not been paid before landing, they were 
forfeit. If foreign sugars were to be admitted to an entry after they were actually 
forfeited, the Act of 6 George II would be evaded. Neither Partridge by 
his proclamation nor his predecessor, "or even the Crown could repeal, qualify 
129 The text of tire orders (Jan. 3, 1764) appended 
as an exhibit to the Case of appellant 
McNelly (ibid., 36,220/103, p. 8). Dalrymple 
makes the remarkable admission that because 
of the chicane of the French governor of 
Guadeloupe in preventing English merchants 
from getting their "effects" off that island, 
"I have opened our Ports, perhaps, more than 
the Law of Trade permit to facilitate that Operation 
to them." 
130 The deposition is appended to Appellant 
McNelly's Case (ibid,, f. 101, p. 4). 
131 Ibid., f. 104, p. 9,