Lawrence et al. v. Minturn. 12, art. 421. He says: "Perhaps the common safety would not have made a jettison necessary if the lading had not been in contravention of rule, if it had not brought the dangers on the vessel, or contributed to enhance them." Similar views have been taken by the most approved writers on the law of insurance, in this country and in England, and they have been applied in many cases. Abbott on Shipping, 481, 490, and notes; 3 Kent's Comm., 240; 2 Phillips on Ins., 71; 2 Arnold on Ins., 890. It was remarked by Lord Denman, in Milward v. Hibbert, 3 Ad. & El., N. s., 120, that the reason assigned by Valin, that goods on deck embarrassed the navigation of the ship, is not sufficient to form the basis of a universal rule, excluding goods on deck from the benefit of contribution ; because it may be that, in many cases, goods can best and most safely be stowed on deck; and that they may, in some cases, be so stowed as not to be in the way of the crew in their operations. This may be true; but the point here is, not whether there may be cases in which the deck load does not embarrass the navigation or increase the danger, but whether, in case it does so, the shipper who has consented to his goods being placed on deck, under a special contract, and not pursuant to any general custom, which might be evidence of the safety of the practice, must not be taken to have known that such might be its effects. It was strongly urged, by the libellant's counsel, that the shipper could not be supposed to have, and should not suffer for not possessing a knowledge of the capacity or sufficiency of the ship; that the carrier was bound to know that the instrument, by which he agreed to perform a particular service, was sufficient for that service; and that, as these carriers contracted to convey this deck load to San Francisco, they were obliged to ascertain whether placing it on deck would *114] overload their vessel. This appears to have been the ground on which the court below rested its decree. This reasoning would be quite unanswerable, if applied to a shipment of cargo under deck, or to its being laden on deck without the consent of the merchant, or to a contract in which perils of the sea were not excepted. But the maritime codes and writers have recognized the distinction between cargo placed on deck, with the consent of the shipper, and cargo under deck. There is not one of them which gives a recourse against the master, the vessel, or the owners, if the property lost had been placed on deck with the consent of its owner; and they afford very high evidence of the general and appropriate usages, in this particular, of merchants and ship-owners. Consolato, par Lawrence et al. v. Minturn. Pardessus, c. 186; Ord. de Mer, Valin, lib. 2, tit. 1, art. 12; Code du Com. Mar. par Locré, lib. 2, tit. 4, art. 229; Emerigon, ch. 12, sec. 42; Boulay Paty, tom. 4, 566, 568. So the courts of this country and England, and the writers on this subject, have treated the owner of goods on deck, with his consent, as not having a claim on the master or owners of the ship, in case of jettison. The received law, on the point, is expressed by Chancellor Kent, with his usual precision, in 3 Com., 240; "Nor is the carrier in that case (jettison of deck load) responsible to the owner, unless the goods were stowed on deck without the consent of the owner, or a general custom binding him, and then he would be chargeable with the loss." The cases of Smith et al. v. Wright, 1 Cai. (N. Y.), 43; Dodge v. Bartol, 5 Greenl. (Me.), 286; Hampton v. The Brig Thaddeus, 4 Mart. (La.), 582; Story on Bailments, 339, sec. 531; and Gould v. Oliver, 4 Bing. N. C., 142, support this statement. In the last mentioned case, Tindal, C. J., says: "Now, where the loading on deck has taken place with the consent of the merchant, it is obvious that no remedy against the ship-owner or master, for a wrongful loading of the goods on deck, can exist. The foreign authorities are, indeed, express on that point; and the general rule of the English law, that no one can maintain an action for a wrong, where he has consented or contributed to the act which occasions his loss, leads to the same conclusion." It must be admitted, that no one of the authorities referred to go so far as to maintain that the ship-owner contracts no obligation whatever to the merchant, respecting the sufficiency of the vessel to carry the deck load received on board. They should not be understood as supporting such a position. The extent to which we understand them to go, and the law which *we intend to lay down, is this: that if the vessel is [*115 seaworthy to carry a cargo under deck, and there was no general custom to carry such goods on deck in such a voyage, and the loss is to be attributed solely to the fact that the goods were on deck, and their owner had consented to their being there, he has no recourse against the master, owners, or vessel, for a jettison rendered necessary for the common safety, by a storm, though that storm, in all probability, would have produced no injurious effect on the vessel if not thus laden. It is not for him to say that, in the first storm the vessel encountered, though not of unusual severity, she proved to be unable to carry the deck load, and so was not of sufficient capacity to perform the contract into which the carrier entered. The carrier does not contract that a deck load shall not Lawrence et al. v. Minturn. embarrass the navigation of the vessel in a storm, or that it shall not cause her so to roll and labor in a heavy sea, as to strain and endanger the vessel. In short, he does not warrant the sufficiency of his vessel, if otherwise staunch and seaworthy, to withstand any extraordinary action of the sea when thus laden. If the vessel is in itself staunch and seaworthy, and her inability to resist a storm arises solely from the position of a part of the cargo on the deck, the owner of the cargo, who has consented to this mode of shipment, cannot recover from the ship or its owners, on the ground of negligence, or breach of an implied contract respecting seaworthiness. His right to contribution is not involved in this case. Applying these principles to the case before us, there is no difficulty in coming to a satisfactory conclusion. This vessel was uncommonly staunch and strong. The amount of dead weight on board was not excessive, for there is no pretence that she was too deep in the water. There was no apparent inability to carry the deck load when she sailed, nor until heavy seas were encountered. Her inability to carry these boilers and chimneys arose solely from their particular position on deck. The libellant, through the shipper in New York, consented to their being placed in this position. He took the risk of their rendering the ship unmanageable in a storm; and he, and not the ship-owners, must bear the loss occasioned by their being placed on the deck, so far as the liability for the loss rests upon any ground of negligence in the place of stowage, or breach of warranty respecting the seaworthiness of the vessel. As to the argument, that there was negligence in not properly stowing and supporting this burden on deck, we think it is not made out in proof. The master is bound to use due diligence and skill in stowing and staying the cargo; but there is no absolute warranty that what is done shall prove sufficient. We are of opinion that due diligence *116] and skill were used. Besides, we do not find the necessity for the jettison attributable to any defects in these particulars. It may be, that additional supports of the lower deck would have assisted the vessel in bearing the weight, but we see no reason to believe they would have enabled it to carry this unusual burden through a storm; and, therefore, if we found negligence in this particular, we could not declare that the loss was to be attributed to it. The decree of the district court is to be reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to dismiss the libel with costs. Stewart v. The United States. Order. This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the district court of the United States for the northern district of California, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this court, that the decree of the said district court in this cause be and the same is hereby reversed with costs, and that this cause be and the same is hereby remanded to the said district court, with directions to that court to dismiss the libel with costs. ADAM D. STEWART, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE UNITED STATES. Congress have directed by law that in certain cases the duties of collectors of the revenue should be united with those of naval officer or surveyor of the port, but never with those of inspector of the customs. Therefore, where a person held the two offices of collector of the revenue and inspector of the customs, and charged a salary for each office separately, it was irregular. In May, 1822, congress passed an act, (3 Stat. at L., 693,) directing that "no collector, surveyor, or naval officer, shall ever receive more than $400 annually, exclusive of his compensation as collector, surveyor or naval officer, and the fines and forfeitures allowed by law for any services he may perform for the United States in any other office or capacity." This act was intended to provide compensation to the collector, &c., for extraordinary services incident to their respective offices, and to them only; but did not include the union of the two offices of collector and inspector of the customs. A different mode and rate of compensation for inspectors was provided by law. THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the circuit court of the United States for the District of Columbia, holden in and for the county of Washington. There was an agreed statement of facts in the record, which is transcribed in the opinion of the court, and therefore it is unnecessary to recite it here. [*117 Stewart was sued in 1835, and voluntarily appeared. From *that time to 1850, the cause was regularly continued upon the docket. Under the instructions of the court, the jury found a verdict of the plaintiffs, for $638.81, with interest from the 13th of January, 1833. Stewart brought the case up to this court by writ of error. It was argued by Mr. Walter S. Cox, for the plaintiff in Stewart v. The United States. error, and by Mr. Cushing, (attorney-general,) for the United States. Mr. Cox, for the plaintiff in error, made the following points : 1. That the act of congress of May 7, 1822, does not apply to cases in which a collector holds at the same time the office of collector and any other distinct and independent office recognized by law, by distinct and independent appointment, but only to cases in which duties appertaining to other offices are, in occasional cases, annexed by law to the office of collector, or, by usage of the treasury department, he is called on to perform duties not strictly appertaining to his office. If the literal meaning of a statute would extend to cases which the court are satisfied the legislature never contemplated, or which would lead to absurd consequences, the operation of the statute must be restrained to narrower limits than the words import. 2 Inst., 386; Bac. Abr. Stat. I., 5; 1 Bl. Com., 88; Brewer's Lessee v. Blougher, 14 Pet., 78; United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358; 1 Cond. R., 421. In this case, the literal import of the language used in section 18th of the act of May, 1822, as understood by the accounting officers of the treasury, would embrace cases never contemplated by congress, and to which the application of the law would be absurd. It would require that every officer in the service of the United States should be satisfied with $400 per annum, as the pay of his office, if he at the same time hold the office of collector, no matter how insignificant the emoluments of the latter, or how responsible the duties of the former office. On the other hand, there is a subject-matter to which the language applies without any absurd or inconvenient consequences. The act entitled "An act to regulate the collection of duties," &c., of July 31, 1789, ch. 23, §§ 7, 8, (1 Stat. at L., 29,) devolves the duties of one or more of the three offices of collector, naval officer, and surveyor, upon one of them, in certain contingencies, and temporarily. Again, by the practice of the treasury department, collectors and naval officers have acted as agents to disburse money for light-houses, receiving commissions for the same, and have *issued certificates to accompany distilled spirits, *118] wines, and teas, receiving fees for the same. In these cases, they do not act in any distinct office created by law, but perform mere agency service, these duties being annexed to their offices by the department. The law applies to such |