An application was made to the Collector at Liverpool for the registry of a ship called the _Equador_, belonging to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. In the first instance, the Company required registry as a Joint-Stock Company, and three members, who had been duly elected and appointed trustees, attended at the Custom-House, Liverpool, to subscribe the requisite declaration of registry, in conformity with the provisions of the 13th and 36th sections of the Act 8 & 9 Vict., cap. 89 (the Registry Act). By the 13th section, the trustees of a Joint-Stock Company, in common with all other owners of British ships (_excepting those owned by corporate bodies_), were required to declare “that no foreigner, directly or indirectly, hath any share or part interest in the said ship or vessel.” The trustees in question stated that they could not make that declaration, because, in point of fact, foreigners did hold shares in that ship, and also in the other vessels belonging to the said Company; and they requested the Collector and Controller at Liverpool to expunge from the declaration the words above recited; but those officers, having no legal authority to comply with this request, refused to make this alteration. The Company then addressed the Board of Customs, requesting that they would direct their officers at Liverpool to expunge from the declaration the words above recited; but the Board, acting under advice, refused compliance with the request. The Company’s secretary then demanded registry on behalf of the Company as a “corporate body,” and claimed to make the declaration, contained in the 13th section of the Act aforesaid, which applies to corporate bodies. That declaration does not, like the other declaration, exclude foreign interest; and if, in the first instance, the Company had claimed registry as a corporate body, the probability is, that it would have been granted as a matter of course, without raising the question of foreign interest. But the Collector and Controller at Liverpool, with a full knowledge that foreigners were proprietors of the vessel, and adverting to the 13th and other sections of the Registry Act, refused registry; and the Commissioners of Customs, acting upon their solicitor’s opinion, supported the Liverpool officers in their refusal to grant the registry. The Company then moved for a mandamus in the Court of Queen’s Bench; and, after the usual proceedings in such cases, it was decided by the Court that as the Company applied for registration in its corporate capacity, the Court could not take notice of its constituent members, whether they were actually foreigners or not; or, in other words, that an English Incorporated Company was a British subject for the purposes of the Registry Act. [Sidenote: Further details: owner to reside in the United Kingdom.]