SEAMEN'S WAGES. or authority to alter them. If forfeitures are incurred, and the services of the seaman again unconditionally accepted, and not under a new, but the old, contract, forfeitures are done away, and faults forgiven. But I have always permitted deductions for voluntary absence from duty; and have allowed charges, if they exceeded these deductions, and were inevitable, to be made for hiring others to perform the services, the absent mariners were bound to render. It would be unreasonable that the mariner should gain, and the ship lose, pecuniary advantages, by his voluntary and unfaithful conduct in the abandonment of his duty.. When a mariner, under certain circumstances, is withdrawn, by a force he cannot resist, from the performance of his duty, the law continues his right to wages. He must balance this benefit by just compensation and amends, when his services cease by his own conduct, and voluntary dereliction of the duty his contract compells him to fulfill. The question in this cause is reduced to the point of alleged mistake; on which it is endeavoured to repel the bar produced by the receipt in full. Where seamen have been hurried into unjust compliances, by fraud, deception, threats or other improper conduct, palpably imposing, deceiving, overawing, or misleading them, I have disregarded receipts for full payment. But discharges given with due deliberation, and full explanation of circumstances, should not be set aside on light grounds. There will be no end to controversy, if due care is not taken on this subject. It would be highly improper to countenance such laveering (to use a sea phrase) as seems to have been practised in this case. SEAMEN'S WAGES. If openness and simplicity be characteristic of some, low cunning is not less conspicuous in other sailors. The complainants had a full opportunity of considering and knowing their own rights, and of taking advice. They had the choice of accepting the offer, or proceeding at law, with an assurance of submission to the first decision; and by such submission avoiding the delay and expense of an appeal, which to a sailor, eager to receive, and lamentably prone rapidly to spend, his wages, is tantamount to a denial. Appeals are, too frequently, only productive to rapacious dealers, who buy for trifles, procrastinated claims. It is notorious in this court, that appeals (always desirable to me in doubtful or difficult causes) are too often entered, or threatened, in plain cases, by a defeated, and of course, discontented, party; who, viewing only his own side of the question, easily persuades himself that he is in the right, to force seamen into compliances with litigated deductions. Yet, in the present case, where avowedly no appeal was contemplated, the seamen could not be induced to risk a legal enquiry, which seems now to have been an after-thought; or, if intended, artfully concealed, to obtain from the merchant, as much as he would pay. Parties and counsel in suits know well, that legal proceedings are attended with no small expense, and not a little uncertainty. The consideration of avoiding litigation, and that under a consciousness of misconduct, weighed with the seamen, against their loss by deduction, from the whole of their claim. Most suitors experience the importance of such considerations, even where no sense of improper behaviour exists. I do not there Whiteman et al. US. the ship Neptune Abuses practised in some instances by appeals. SEAMEN'S WAGES. Whiteman fore see the mistake, said to be made by these ma et al. VS. the ship Neptune. riners, in the light stated by their counsel. I am more certain of the mistake they have gone into, by entering into a controversy, which on both sides appears to have been relinquished. After professing to have acted under misapprehension, it is not to be tolerated in the mariners, that they should take advantage of the misapprehension of the merchant, who paid them, under the idea of putting an end to a dispute, in which he is finally involved. The transactions at Charleston are not in proof; but if the whole subject was before me, and any thing should appear due from the seamen, it is not probable they can refund any sum overpaid. It is not proper that the merchant should be placed, by a deceptious accommodation on the part of the mariners, in a situation to incur the risk.* I dismiss the claim with costs. * In the 6th section of the mariner's act, the mode of proceeding in cases of seamen's wages, is pointed out. The judge of the district, or, if he resides more than three miles from the place, any judge or justice may proceed in a summary way, and determine a controversy so far as to certify or not, as the case may be, cause for issuing admiralty process. If cause is certified, the suit proceeds in the district court; if not, it precludes farther investigation, and places the party defeated in a situation not to admit of a course to bring the point before a superior tribunal, in the form he wishes. These preliminary enquiries are only where a procedure in rem, is contemplated; and are not frequently final. They change into a proceeding in personam too often, as the seaman has several remedies. It is then a perplexing continuance of controversy, when parties are embittered and litigious. It is not pleasant for a judge to review his own decision, though the cause may, in form be different. Prejudices may, unperceived by one, of the best inclinations, SEAMEN'S WAGES. steal into the mind, and pride of opinion may have an influence felt, without being directly known. Parties do not generally submit to the first opinion of either judges or justices, most seldom to those of the latter, of whom there are not many sufficiently acquainted with maritime laws, to have a proper view of the subject. This, as often continues, as closes litigation. Causes are brought into court, after these prefatory enquiries, either to appeal, which may now be done in demands for fifty dollars, a sum injuriously too small, to compel compromise, or under a hope of producing an opposite decision. It is at least multiplying chances; which will, at times, operate in suits, as well as in other transactions among mankind. There are some cases rari nantes in gurgite vasto, where new evidence, or farther investigation, very properly changes opinion. In the case in question, the cause is now in court. Whiteman the ship Neptune. B b SEAMEN'S WAGES. Relf and others, mariners, versus The ship Maria, Pratt and Kintzing, owners. 1805. THE question principally turned on the case of Relf, the owners having settled with the whole, or greater part of the crew, the clomplainant Relf exconduct of the cepted. Mutinous and rebellious mariners, if persisted in, forfeit their right to wages. It appears that the ship had been armed, in the port of Philadelphia, with twelve guns; before Congress had passed any law on the subject. There were on board five officers, and forty-two men. The shipping articles were lost; but it appeared in testimony, that the vessel was cleared out for the The following notes of the decisions of JAMES WINCHESTER, ESQ. have been received too late for an insertion in an early part of this work, and in connection with cases involving the same points. They, with others which will be included in these reports, will be found worthy of the attention of every lawyer, and will be received as new proofs of the genius and learning of the late judge of the Maryland district. 1. Seaman's wages are due by the custom of merchants at every delivering port. 2. Wherever freight is earned wages are also earned. And as a consequence of this rule, 3. If the vessel be lost before her arrival at a delivering port the wages are nevertheless earned if the freight be advanced.— 2 Sho. 283. |