Fourth. To facilitate the making of apprenticeships to the sea service.

Fifth. To perform such other duties relating to merchant seamen or merchant ships as may be required by law.

46 § 546. Penalty for personating shipping commissioner

Any person other than a Coast Guard official to whom the duties of shipping commissioner under title 53 of the Revised Statutes have been delegated, who shall perform or attempt to perform, either directly or indirectly, the duties which are by such title set forth as pertaining to a shipping commissioner, shall be liable to a penalty of not more than $500. Nothing in such title, however, shall prevent the owner, or consignee, or master of any vessel except vessels bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port, other than vessels engaged in trade between the United States and the British North American possessions, or the West India Islands, or the Republic of Mexico, and vessels of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, from performing, himself, so far as his vessel is concerned, the duties of shipping commission under title 53 of the Revised Statues. Whenever the master of any vessel shall engage his crew, or any part of the same, in any collection district where no Coast Guard official to perform the duties of shipping commissioner shall have been appointed, he may perform for himself the duties of such commissioner.

SHIPMENT OF CREW

46 § 561. Apprentices

Every Coast Guard official to whom the duties of shipping commissioner appointed under title 53 of the Revised Statutes have been delegated shall, if applied to for the purpose of apprenticing boys to the sea service, by any master or owner of a vessel, or by any person legally qualified, give such assistance as is in his power for facilitating the making of such apprenticeships; but such Coast Guard official shall ascertain that the boy has voluntarily consented to be bound, and that the parents or guardian of such boy have consented to such apprenticeship, and that he has attained the age of twelve years, and is of sufficient health and strength, and that the master to whom such boy is to be bound is a proper person for the purpose. Such apprenticeship shall terminate when the apprentice becomes eighteen years of age. Such Coast Guard official shall keep a register of all indentures of apprenticeship made before him.

46 § 562. Indenture of apprentice to be produced to commissioner

The master of every foreign-going vessel shall, before carrying any apprentice to sea from any place in the United States, cause such apprentice to appear before the Coast Guard official to whom

the duties of shipping commissioner have been delegated before whom the crew is engaged, and shall produce to him the indenture by which such apprentice is bound, and the assignment or assignments thereof if any, and the name of the apprentice, with the date of the indenture and of the assignment or assignments thereof, if any, shall be entered on the agreement; which shall be in the form as near as may be given in the table marked "A" in the schedule annexed to this chapter, and no such assignment shall be made without the approval of such Coast Guard official, of the apprentice, and of his parents or his guardian. For any violation of this section, the master shall be liable to a penalty of not more than $100.

46 563. Shipment of crews; shipping agreements

Coast Guard officials to whom the duties of shipping commissioners have been delegated may ship crews for any vessel engaged in the coastwise trade, or the trade between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, or Newfoundland, or the West Indies, or the Republic of Mexico, at the request of the master or owner of such vessel.

When a crew is shipped by such Coast Guard official for any American vessel in the coastwise trade, or the trade between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, or Newfoundland, or the West Indies, or Mexico, as authorized by this section, an agreement shall be made with each seaman engaged as one of such crew in the same manner as is provided by sections 564 and 565 of this title, not however including the sixth and eighth items of section 564 of this title, and such agreement shall be posted as provided in section 577 of this title, and such seaman shall be discharged and receive their wages as provided by the first clause of section 596 of this title, and also by sections 593-595, 597, 600, 603, 604, 625-628, 641-643, 644, 645 and 651 of this title; but in all other respects such shimpment of seamen and such shipping agreement shall be regarded as if both shipment and agreement had been entered into between the master of a vessel and a seaman without going before such Coast Guard official: Provided, That the clothing of any seaman shall be exempt from attachment, and that any person who shall detain such clothing when demanded by the owner shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be imprisoned not more than six months or fined not more than $500, or both.

The master of every vessel bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port other than vessels engaged in trade between the United States and the British North American possessions, or the West India Islands, or Mexico, or of any vessel of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall, before he proceeds on such voyage, make an agreement, in writing or in print, with every seaman whom he carries to sea as one of the crew, in the manner hereinafter mentioned; and every such

agreement shall be, as near as may be, in the form given in the table marked A, in the schedule annexed to this chapter, and shall be dated at the time of the first signature thereof, and shall be signed by the master before any seaman signs the same, and shall contain the following particulars:

First. The nature and, as far as practicable, the duration of the intended voyage or engagement, and the port or country at which the voyage is to terminate.

Second. The number and description of the crew, specifying their respective employments.

Third. The time at which each seaman is to be on board, to begin work.

Fourth. The capacity in which each seaman is to serve.

Fifth. The amount of wages which each seaman is to receive. Sixth. A scale of the provisions which are to be furnished to each

seaman.

Seventh. Any regulations as to conduct on board, and as to fines, short allowance of provisions, or other lawful punishments for misconduct, which may be sanctioned by Congress or authorized by the Commandant of the Coast Guard not contary to or not otherwise provided for by law, which the parties agree to adopt. Eighth. Any stipulations in reference to advance and allotment of wages, or other matters not contrary to law.

46 § 565. Rules for shipping articles

The following rules shall be observed with respect to agreements:

First. Every agreement, except such as are otherwise specially provided for, shall be signed by each seaman in the presence of a Coast Guard official to whom the duties of shipping commissioner have been delegated.

Second. When the crew is first engaged the agreement shall be signed in duplicate, and one part shall be retained by such Coast Guard official, and the other part shall contain a special place or form for the description and signatures of persons engaged subsequently to the first departure of the ship and shall be delivered to the master.

Third. Every agreement entered into before such Coast Guard official shall be acknowledged and certified under the hand and official seal of such Coast Guard official. The certificate of acknowledgment shall be indorsed on or annexed to the agreement; and shall be in the following form:

"State of "On this

County of
day of

personally appeared before me, a Coast Guard offical in and for the said county, A. B., C. D., and E. F., severally known to me to be the same persons who executed the foregoing instrument, who each for himself acknowledged to me that he had read or had heard read the same; that he was by me made acquainted with the conditions thereof, and understood the same; and that, while sober and not in a state of intoxication, he signed it freely and voluntarily, for the uses and purposes therein mentioned."

46 § 566. Exception as to shipping articles

Section 564 of this title shall not apply to masters of vessels where the seamen are by custom or agreement entitled to participate in the profits or result of a cruise or voyage, nor to masters of coastwise nor to masters of lake-going vessels that touch at foreign ports; but seamen may, by agreement, serve on board such vessels a definite time, or, on the return of any vessel to a port in the United States, may reship and sail in the same vessel on another voyage.

46 § 567. Penalty for shipping without agreement

If any person shall be carried to sea, as one of the crew on board of any vessel making a voyage as hereinbefore specified, without entering into an agreement with the master of such vessel, in the form and manner, and at the place and times in such cases required, the vessel shall be held liable for each such offense to a penalty of not more than $200. But the vessel shall not be held liable for any person carried to sea, who shall have secretly stowed away himself without the knowledge of the master, mate, or of any of the officers of the vessel, or who shall have falsely personated himself to the master, mate, or officers of the vessel, for the purpose of being carried to sea.

46 § 568. Penalty for knowingly shipping seamen without articles

If any master, mate, or other officer of a vessel knowingly receives, or accepts, to be entered on board of any merchant vessel, any seaman who has been engaged or supplied contrary to the provisions of title 53 of the Revised Statutes, the vessel on board of which such seaman shall be found shall, for every such seaman, be liable to a penalty of not more than $200.

46 § 569. Shipping seamen to replace those lost by desertion or casualty

In case of desertion or casualty resulting in the loss of one or more of the seamen, the master must ship, if obtainable, a number equal to the number of those whose services he has been deprived of by desertion or casualty, who must be of the same or higher grade or rating with those whose places they fill, and report the same to the United States consul at the first port at which he shall arrive, without incurring the penalty prescribed by sections 567 and 568 of this title. This section shall not apply to fishing or whaling vessels or yachts.

46 §570. Shipping seamen in foreign ports

Every master of a merchant vessel who engages any seaman at a place out of the United States, in which there is a consular officer shall, before carrying such seaman to sea, procure the sanction of such officer, and shall engage seamen in his presence; and the rules governing the engagement of seamen before a Coast

Guard official to whom the duties of shipping commisioner have been delegated in the United States, shall apply to such engagements made before a consular officer; and upon every such engagement the consular officer shall indorse upon the agreement his sanction thereof, and an attestation to the effect that the same has been signed in his presence, and otherwise duly made.

46 § 571. Penalty for violating section 570 of this title

Every master who engages any seaman in any place in which there is a consular officer, otherwise than as required by section 570 of this title, shall incur a penalty of not more than $100, for which penalty the vessel shall be held liable.

46 § 572. Voyage or term for which seamen may be shipped; reshipment

A master of a vessel in the foreign trade may engage a seaman at any port in the United States, in the manner provided by law, to serve on a voyage to any port, or for the round trip from and to the port of departure, or for a definite time, whatever the destination. The master of a vessel making regular and stated trips between the United States and a foreign country may engage a seaman for one or more round trips, or for a definite time, or on the return of said vessel to the United States may reship such seaman for another voyage in the same vessel, in the manner provided by law.

46 573. Voyage or term of seaman shipped in foreign port; reshipment; bond

Every master of a vessel in the foreign trade may engage any seaman at any port out of the United States, in the manner provided by law, to serve for one or more round trips from and to the port of departure, or for a definite time, whatever the destination; and the master of a vessel clearing from a port of the United States with one or more seamen engaged in a foreign port as herein provided shall not be required to reship in a port of the United States the seamen so engaged, or to give bond, to produce said seamen before a boarding officer on the return of said vessel to the United States.

46 § 574. Shipping articles for vessels in coasting trade

Every master of any vessel of the burden of fifty tons or upward, bound from a port in one State to a port in any other than an adjoining State, except vessels of the burden of seventy-five tons or upward, bound from a port on the Atlantic to a port on the Pacific, or vice versa, shall, before he proceeds on such voyage, make an agreement in writing or in print, with every seaman on board such vessel except such as shall be apprentice or servant to himself or owners, declaring the voyage or term of time for which such seaman shall be shipped.