ON MARITIME LAW. INCLUDING 4155 THE LAW OF SHIPPING; THE LAW OF MARINE INSURANCE; BY THEOPHILUS PARSONS, LL.D., DANE PROFESSOR of law in Harvard UniversITY; AND AUTHor of treatisES AND THE LAWS OF BUSINESS FOR BUSINESS MEN. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by THEOPHILUS PARSONS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. ΤΟ CHARLES G. LORING, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND, LET me dedicate this work to you. The arduous and honorable office you now hold has taken you from your high position at the Bar, where you had all the success and distinction our profession could give. But the mercantile community (as you know, to your cost I should say, if you were not one of those who love labor) will not consent to lose the advantage of your experience, your learning, and your sagacity. And if any of the questions submitted to you lead you to open these volumes of mine, and you find there some of the cases in which, in the olden time, we met, as opponents, but not as enemies, you will be willing, I think, to remember how long our friendship has lasted; and you will pardon me for saying, that I have always regarded it as contributing to the honor and the happiness of my life. THEOPHILUS PARSONS. PREFACE. BEFORE I came to Cambridge, and while still engaged in the business of my profession, I had become convinced that the books in the different departments of maritime law, excellent as some of them were, were still open to the objection, that they treated severally and disconnectedly, topics which in themselves were closely connected and needed the mutual illustration they could give each other. It seemed to me that the Law of Shipping and the Law of Marine Insurance, for example, could not be learned fully and accurately excepting in their connection. How these subjects intermingle in some of their subdivisions, is obvious. Thus, no work on Shipping would leave the subject of General Average untouched; and certainly no work on Insurance could do so. But does this topic belong more properly to Shipping or to Insurance? It belongs to both; and equally to both; and connects the two together. And to go beyond this, it may be said that there is no topic of either of these systems of law, which can be treated of with any fulness, without a frequent reference, more or less direct, to the same topic as it stands in the other of those sys tems. Moreover, the appropriate and specific law of remedy A* |