the charterer or his agent, and let the fact of each demand or refusal of payment appear on the protest. It may make a master more careful, when he remembers that he himself becomes personally responsible for all or any contracts he may make in reference to the repairs, supplies, and navigation of the ship; for both he and his owner are regarded by the law of England as common carriers. But if there is a special promise or order by the owner, the master is not liable, and is discharged from any obligation; and on the other hand, if there is a special promise by the master, the owner is not liable. * The authority of the master of a ship is great, and extends to all acts that are usual and necessary for the use and management of the vessel. He may make contracts to carry goods on freight, but cannot bind the owners to carry freight free. So, with regard to goods put on board, he may sign the bills of lading, and acknowledge the nature, quality, and condition of the goods. Constant usage shows that the master has a general authority; and if a more limited authority is given, the party not informed of it is not affected by such limitation.† 14. SHIPPING AGREEMENT OR ARTICLES EXECUTED IN A FOREIGN PORT. Although most British vessels bound to a port in the United States have agreements or shipping articles, which require the seamen to continue their services while the vessel pursues the voyage for which they engaged, and, as a general rule, until a final port of discharge in the United Kingdom has been reached, yet it will not unfrequently happen that, by reason of the expiration of the original period for which they ship-by a deviation from the * Farmer v. Davis, 1 Durnford and East's Reports, 108. + Chief Justice Jarvis in Grant v. Norway, 2 English Law and Equity Reports, 337. N intended destination of the vessel, or by other circumstances, the master will be obliged to engage a fresh crew, upon a fresh agreement. Even in the case of desertion, when a large proportion of a crew have been lost by this means, it will sometimes be found advisable, in replacing the missing men, to ship them upon new articles, instead of putting them, as is often done, upon the original agreement as substitutes. Where shipping articles for a British vessel are made out abroad, the same form and phraseology in the agreement should, as near as possible, prevail, as if they had been drawn by a shipping master in a British port, and the requirements of the Merchant Shipping Act relative thereto should be adhered to as strictly. As the shipping articles will always be prepared in accordance with the directions of the master, very often by himself in person, he should be able to so word them as to bind his crew, beyond any question, for the voyage upon which they are about to embark. The points upon which shipmasters, and even shipping officers and notaries, most frequently fail when drawing shipping articles, are exactness and perspicuity as to the ports or parts of the world to which the seamen may properly be required to proceed, and the period of time for which they are engaged. British shipping articles are constantly being broken, and crews discharged in the United States, to the detriment of owners and masters, by reason of their erroneous or ambiguous wording. It is the more necessary for shipmasters to exercise care and circumspection upon this point when engaging crews in the United States, for the reason that, owing to circumstances which neither he nor his Consul can control, he will generally be obliged to employ some one of the local shipping masters to obtain any seamen he may require; and these shipping masters are for the most part a totally irresponsible class, very frequently wanting in common education, and holding no official position which might subject them to restraint or loss of office for negligent or mischievous performance of their duties. The supplying of seamen in the United States is an almost complete monopoly exercised by the shipping masters and sailors' boarding-house keepers; and although shipmasters may in some few instances be able to pick up their own crews, it will be found as a general rule that recourse must be had to either one or the other of these classes. By means of their so-styled Seamens' Benevolent Associations, the boarding-house keepers are able to control the supply of seamen and to fix the rates of wages and advance they shall receive, leaving the shipmaster only the choice between remaining idle in port for the want of hands to man his vessel, or proceeding to sea short-handed, and submitting to what is an imposition. It would of course be useless for British shipmasters to attempt opposition to an association embracing, as this does, individuals of large means and (owing to the peculiarity of American institutions) of great political and, therefore, private influence. It has been a principle of British maritime jurisprudence, that contracts of seamen are to be interpreted by other tests than the mere meaning of the terms in which they are expressed; and consequently Courts of Admiralty are enabled and will afford a protection to seamen, which the whole experience of courts of justice shows to be both humane and necessary. A learned American judge has thus forcibly and most sensibly observed, in a case of mariners' wages: 'Seamen are a class of persons remarkable for their rashness, thoughtlessness, and improvidence. They are generally necessitous, ignorant of the nature and extent of their own rights and privileges, and, for the most part, incapable of duly appreciating their value. They combine, in a singular manner, the apparent anomalies of gallantry, extravagance, profusion in expenditure, indifference to the future, credulity which is easily won, and confidence which is readily surprised. Hence it is, that bargains between them and ship-owners, the latter being persons of great intelligence and shrewdness in business, are deemed open to much observation and scrutiny; for they involve great inequality of knowledge, of forecast, of power, and of condition. Courts of Admiralty, on this account, are accustomed to consider seamen as peculiarly entitled to their protection; so that they have been, by a somewhat bold figure, often said to be favourites of Courts of Admiralty. In a just sense they are so, so far as the maintenance of their rights, and the protection of their interests, against the effects of the superior skill and shrewdness of masters and owners of ships, are concerned.' Before the present Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, the Court of Admiralty decided that the voyage ought to be described in shipping articles, with as much precision as could conveniently be introduced, and so as to give the mariner due notice of the adventure on which he em barked.** The words now used in the present above Act, namely, the nature and, as far as practicable, the duration of the intended voyage or engagement,' amount to about the same thing. 6 In describing the voyage, it is unwise to use the words or elsewhere. The courts look upon them with suspicion, and always narrow them to a reasonable construction and to necessity. Such words can, in no way, justify wild and eccentric rambles. There is little doubt but that the rule which applies to the United States, is the same which would attach to British vessels, namely, the shipping articles must declare explicitly the ports at which the voyage is to commence and terminate. * Abbott, 607, referring to The Minerva, 1 Haggard's Admiralty Reports, 374. ↑ The Eliza, 1 Haggard's Admiralty Reports, 182; The Countess of Harcourt, Ibid. 248; The Minerva, Ibid. 374. Magee v. The Moss, 1 Gilpin's (Pennsylvania) Reports, 219. Shipping articles cannot contain anything by which a seaman consents to abandon his right to wages in the case of the loss of the ship, or to abandon any right which he might have or obtain in the nature of salvage. Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, will not allow it.* The The master will have to sign the agreement before any seaman; and the date must be when such first signature is made. When made under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, it must contain the following particulars:-1. The nature and, as far as practicable, the duration of the intended voyage or engagement. 2. The number and description of the crew, specifying how many are engaged as sailors. 3. The time at which each seaman is to be on board or to begin work. 4. The capacity in which each seaman is to serve. 5. The amount of wages which each seaman is to receive. 6. A scale of the provisions which is to be furnished each seaman. 7. Any regulations as to conduct on board; and as to fines, short allowance of provisions, or other lawful punishment for misconduct, which have been sanctioned by the Board of Trade, as regulations proper to be adopted, and which the parties agree to adopt. It may also include stipulations which have been adopted at the will of the master and seamen, as to advance and allotment of wages, and any other stipulations not contrary to law.‡ A master will very likely be able, through his old articles or otherwise, to get at the form. Blanks for British ships are not generally kept by stationers in the ports of the United States. Every erasure, interlineation, or alteration in shipping articles (except additions made for shipping substitutes, or persons engaged subsequently to the first departure of the ship), will be utterly inoperative, unless proved to have been made with the consent of all the persons interested *Section 182. † Ibid. Section 149. Ibid. |