Chapter 319.
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CHAP. 319.— AN ACT supplementary to the act entitled "An act to carry into effect the convention between the United States and China concluded on the eighth day of November, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, at Shanghai", approved March third eighteen hundred and fifty-nine and to give the Court of Claims jurisdiction in certain casesJune 19, 1878. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*,Bark “Caldera.”Claims for loss, etc., on, referred to Court of Claims.1859, ch. 77,11 Stat, 408.
That any person or persons, or body corporate holding and making any claim upon the balance of the fund usually designated and known as “the Chinese indemnity fund”, under the control of the Department of State of the United States and now unappropriated, for loss sustained by the plunder and destruction, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four, of the bark Caldera, and property on board of said vessel, may, at any time within twelve months after the passage of this act commence proceedings in the United States Court of Claims against the United States, in the same manner as other suits are brought, pursuant to and in virtue of the statutes of the United 172 FORTY FIFTH CONGRESS.
Sess. II. Ch. 319, 320. 1878. States and the rules of said court; and that the said Court of Claims shall have full jurisdiction to hear and determine such claim or demand, according to the principles of justice and international law. Sec. 2. That at the hearing or on the trial of any suit so commenced,Proceedings in the cause.Judgment. either party, plaintiff or defendant, shall have the right to use before the court any testimony or documents which may be relevant to, and competent upon, the issues joined between the parties; and that the proceedings, trial, decision, and judgment of the said court shall be had in the same manner as in all other cases before the said Court of Claims, and have the same effect; and that either party, plaintiff or defendant may appeal from the decision or judgment of the said Court of Claims to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner as now provided for in other eases: *Provided, however*, That if any final judgment be found in favor of a claimant or plaintiff, the same shall only be paid and satisfied out of the balance of said Chinese indemnity fund; and if said judgment shall be in favor of the defendant, then such claimants shall be forever barred in law and equity from hereafter making any claim upon or against said fund.
Approved, June 19, 1878.