Captor's forfeiture for misconduct

There can be no doubt, that if captors are guilty of gross misconduct, or laches, in violation of their duty, courts of prize will visit upon them the penalty of a forfeiture of the rights of prize, especially where the government chooses to interpose a claim to assert such forfeiture. Cases of gross irregularity, or fraud, may readily be imagined in which it would become the duty of this court to enforce this principle in its utmost rigour. But it has never been supposed that irregularities, which have arisen from mere mistake, or negligence, when they work no irreparable mischief, and are consistent with good faith, have ordinarily induced such penal consequences.