the receipt itself is actually printed on the back of articles. Every intelligent person knows, or ought to know, that as a release of anything but the claim for wages, such a receipt is void; and it is time that intelligent shipowners should abandon a practice which, in the use often made of it, is delusive and immoral. It is delusive, because the receipt cannot be made to operate as it is intended; and it is immoral, because it attempts to obtain from the seamen, and sometimes causes them to believe that it has obtained from them, a surrender of rights which they might otherwise enforce, without giving them any consideration for that surrender.' The claimant has produced receipts, given by the libellants' (sailors) in full of all demands, and introduced evidence to show that it was understood at the time of the settlement of the voyage, that this claim was relinquished. It appears, however, that the libellants, in fact, received nothing but the wages they had actually earned. It is quite time that the owners and masters of vessels understood that a seaman's receipt in full, given only for money actually due him, and with no additional consideration, cannot be used in bar of a suit for damages. This mode of depriving a seaman of his just right has been often attempted, and has been uniformly repelled by the court.' Receipts or releases given by seamen, even with all the solemnity of sealed instruments, will have no effect beyond the actual consideration fairly paid.

6

米

There is a case in the American courts, where a receipt from a seaman, purporting to be in full of all debts, dues and demands, was produced to repel a claim for wages. It had been made use of to show an adjustment of a charge for a violent and unjustifiable assault and battery, wantonly and cruelly committed. The court would not take the receipt as conclusive against the seaman.†

* Judge Sprague in the cases of The Commerce, The Mary Pauline, and The Bark Rajah, 1 Sprague's Reports, 34, 45, 199.

† Jackson v. White, 1 Peters's Admiralty Reports, 179.

When a seaman is paid off in a foreign port, the following will answer as form of receipt, after it has been headed with an account stating the time and rate of service, and showing the balance:

Received from the hands of Captain

Ship £

of

Master of the

on behalf of her owner, the sum of

in full satisfaction of my wages during the time of my above service on board of her.

Witness my 18

hand at the port of New York, the

Witness,

day of

When a receipt for a sum exceeding twenty dollars is signed in any part of the United States, it will have to bear a stamp of two cents. Although such a receipt as the above is mainly intended to be used in another country (Great Britain) as a voucher of payment, still it had better bear a U.S. stamp; for it could not be used in America unless duly stamped, and the signer might become afterwards dissatisfied or be led to make further claim. Every receipt for money requires a stamp of two

cents.

11. SUITS BY SEAMEN AGAINST MASTERS IN FOREIGN

COURTS.

Masters of British vessels who have crews under shipping articles for voyages to end in a home-port, very naturally have the idea that their sailors cannot sue in foreign courts. Their notion is that the mariners are not in any sense landsmen, for any purposes during the voyage; that their vessel is a moving part of their own country, and everything protectively outside is stranger; and that a firm foot for redress of wrong can only be placed when the vessel has reached the home-port.

And it is the case that foreign courts ought not, and generally do not, take cognisance of disputes among

captains and men of foreign ships. It is understood that resident Consuls will do much to avoid this, by interposition, and even in some cases by determining decisively in their Consulate, as on a complaint before a judge.

The Admiralty Courts of the United States will, as well as those of England, in general, decline jurisdiction as to wages between foreign masters and crews, unless the voyage has been broken up or ended, or the seamen unlawfully discharged. And it is expected that a foreign seaman, seeking to prosecute an action of this description in such Admiralty Courts, will procure the official sanction of the Consular representative of the country to which he belongs, or that good reasons be shown for allowing his suit in the absence of such approval.

*

But where the voyage is terminated, either by its completion or abandonment, or there is a dissolution of the contract by the wrongful act of the owner or master, suits in Admiralty are entertained. Where the voyage has not terminated, or the seamen have bound themselves in shipping articles to abide by the decisions of their own tribunals, they are left to the courts of their own country.†

While the Merchant Seaman's Act, 1854 (section 190), declares that no seaman is to sue for wages abroad, yet it excepts and, therefore, in a sense, recognises the right to sue where there has been a discharge, or is danger to life.

British seamen in American ports are often encouraged by the chance of higher wages to press complaints through the courts with a view to break their contracts, especially in the shape of actions for assault and battery. Some of such suits might be stayed if British shipping articles had upon their face what agreements with seamen made in several other countries have-namely, an express stipu

* The Infanta, 1 Abbott's Admiralty Reports, 263; The Sea Reuter, 1 Dodson's Admiralty Reports, 22.

+ Curtis's Rights and Duties of Merchant Seamen, 359.

lation that no actions or proceedings should be brought for wages or personal wrongs in any foreign port during the voyage, and that all such actions and proceedings should be left to the home-courts. It is true, as we have

above shown, that the Act of Parliament is positive against suing generally for wages abroad, but American judges are not always inclined to look further than at the written contract, the shipping articles.

The common law courts of the United States will allow of actions for personal wrongs, such as assaults and batteries, committed on the high seas on board a foreign vessel, where the master and seamen are British, or, in fact, belonging to any foreign nation. But on principles of comity between different countries, as well as to prevent the frequent and serious injuries that would result from doing this in all cases indiscriminately, they have exercised a sound discretion in entertaining jurisdiction or not, according to circumstances. Accordingly, the great inconveniences which would arise from it have induced them to decline interference in ordinary cases, and leave parties to seek redress in the courts of their own country. But where a seaman is legally discharged from the vessel in the United States, he may maintain an action in the courts there for a wrong committed on the high seas while the relation of master and seaman existed, as also for wages.

*

British master mariners, when they are troubled with law proceedings in foreign courts, often have the idea that all they have to do is to go to their Consul, and he will defend them. But this is a mistake. He can sometimes aid a master under such circumstances, by allowing his name to be so far used in proceedings, in a proper case, to show that he, as Consul, protests against a foreign court interfering, and may be able to point out a proper attor

* Johnson v. Dalton, 1 Cowen's (New York) Reports, 543; Gardner v. Thomas, 14 Johnson's (N.Y.) Reports, 134; Shalenburg v. Hessels, 2 E. D. Smith's (N.Y.) Reports, 70.

ney for the master to retain and employ. But the latter cannot, in any case, throw a suit which is against himself or his owner upon the hands of the Consul, or require him to bear its expense or defence.

Some of the European nations, in their treaties with the United States, have an article which declares that the courts of the latter shall not take cognisance of disputes between masters and seamen of the former; but Great Britain has no such treaty with the United States.

In case a master has intimation of an action, it would be well for him not to stand obstinately on the idea (which we have shown the fallacy of) that his Consul can or must protect him and his vessel, but to take counsel of a respectable shipping lawyer; for otherwise he may find himself arrested, or his vessel attached, and matters complicated.

Nor has Great Britain any article in any treaty which requires magistrates to arrest and deliver over deserters. It is true that, in some ports, magistrates will act upon well-known international comity, and arrest and hold deserters under a request from a British Consul; but there is no written authority for it. And in some ports, as, for instance, in New York, it is not safe or easy to get police magistrates thus to act. So that masters should themselves be watchful of their men. It is certainly unfortunate that there is no treaty stipulation between Great Britain and the United States, relative to leaving disputes between masters and seamen to be settled by their Consul, nor for the surrender of deserters from British vessels; for if there were, a late Act of Congress would prevent courts in the United States from entertaining suits by runaway and dissatisfied seamen. This statute has reference to the arrest of deserters, but it is restricted in its reference to crews of vessels of such foreign nations only as have treaty stipulations to that effect.*

* 13 U.S. Statutes at large, 121.