SCHOONER EXCHANGE VS MCFADDON

Facts:

 On 24 August, 1811, John McFaddon & William Greetham, of the State of Maryland,
filed their libel in the District Court of the United States for the District of
Pennsylvania against the Schooner Exchange, setting forth that they were her sole
owners, on 27 October, 1809, when she sailed from Baltimore, bound to St.
Sebastians, in Spain.
 That the ship was violently and forcibly taken by certain persons, acting under the
decrees and orders of Napoleon, Emperor of the French, it was disposed of by those
persons in violation of the rights of the libellants and of the law of nations in that
behalf. That she had been brought into the port of Philadelphia, and was then in the
jurisdiction of that court, in possession of a certain Dennis M. Begon, her reputed
captain or master. 
Issue. Are National ships of war viewed as been exempted by the consent of the power of
the friendly jurisdiction whose port the ship enters?

Held. (Marshall, C.J.) Yes. National ships of war are viewed as been exempted by consent of
the power of the friendly jurisdiction whose port the ship enters. A nation’s jurisdiction
within its sovereign territory is exclusive and absolute.
The Exchange been a public armed ship, currently under the control and supervision of a
foreign power, who at the time of the ship’s entry into the United States territory, was at
peace with the United States, must be viewed as having entered the states territory under
an implied promise that while in such environment, would be exempt from the jurisdiction
of the country. Reversed.

Therefore, Marshall concluded that "a principle of public [international] law [is] that national
ships of war, entering the port of a friendly power open for their reception, are to be
considered as exempted by the consent of that power from its jurisdiction.
Applying that analysis to the facts at hand, Marshall found that the courts did not have
jurisdiction over the case.