when it was necessarily attended by much exposure, both of property and person. It went on for a week. The wreckers were laboriously employed, not only in the day-time whenever the weather and sea would permit, but on one or two occasions in the night-time when the ship was in especial danger. This extraordinary length of time and extent of service must, in justice, enter prominently into consideration in determining the amount due this libellant.

I come now to consider the more general relations of this case to the law of salvage. It would be an unprofitable task to examine in detail the many decisions in salvage cases that have been cited by counsel on each side from the admiralty reporters in their exhaustive studies of the subject. A peculiarity of admiralty cases, more marked than in those illustrating any other branch of the law, is that there are seldom any two cases that are alike in more than one or two of their features; while they are so dissimilar in all other features as rarely to afford much ground for safe comparison. But I think they do show generally that the old rule of allowing to the salvors, arbitrarily, in every case, half the values saved, no longer obtains. Indeed, that rule came at last to so revolt the courts of admiralty that in their repugnance to it they went far towards the other extreme, and manifested a temper to confine themselves too much in their awards to the quantum meruit estimate of salvage services. There has latterly, however, been a recurrence from extreme views in that direction to the middle ground, of adapting the amount allowed to the circumstances of each particular case; giving always the quantum meruit, and giving also, when the case admits of generous treatment, as liberal a bounty as may be just and proper. For there are many cases in which, however meritorious the service may have been in respect to all the ingredients of salvage service that have been discussed, and however anxious the courts may have been to grant the bounty, yet the fund in hand for disposal did not afford the allowance of more than "adequate remuneration."

Admit that a ship and cargo have been in great danger, and that the services of the salvors have been exceptionally meritorious, and such as ought to be rewarded by the court with liberal hand; yet how obvious is the reflection that this may not be done at all with any justice in some cases, but may be justly done with free hand in othAnd this brings me to the seventh consideration proper to be observed in an ordinary salvage.

ers.

7. In the case of the Isaac Allerton, Marvin, Wrecks & Salvage, 122, (note,) the court in awarding half of $96,000 for salvage, said:

"It is a settled rule of decision in this court, from which it rarely or never departs, that the amount of salvage in a case where the vessel is lost shall be less, though the proportion may be greater, than in a case where the vessel is saved, cæteris paribus; and, in proportion somewhat to the promptness and skill with which a vessel is rescued from peril, is the reward to be increased. The reasons for this rule are several, but one is very obvious. When the vessel is lost there is usually a great loss of property; and we are not to aggravate this loss by charging the little that may be saved with a greater salvage than the claims of simple justice to the salvor may demand; and the claims of simple justice to the salvor do not, ordinarily, extend beyond a fair compensation pro opere et labore. All beyond this is gratuity, given or withheld by the courts upon grounds of public policy. When the vessel and a large amount of property have been lost, and a fragment only saved, there is little reason, and less means, for giving gratuities. But when the vessel and entire cargo have been rescued from certain peril, a substantial service has been rendered the owners by preventing a loss; they can afford a more liberal reward; and sound policy dictates the propriety, and the amount of property saved furnishes the means, of making a liberal remuneration. Hence the interests of owners and wreckers are made to harmonize."

Of course the learned judge, in the foregoing just observations, does not intend to declare that there are no cases in which salvors are to be allowed a liberal bounty over and above ordinary wages, even though much property was lost and its owner distressingly impoverished; but in the great majority of cases his principle is eminently just, and I thoroughly concur in the rule of action which he propounds. And therefore I do not agree with counsel in this case in their opposing views on the question whether the percentage allowed for salvage shall be less on large values rescued than on small ones, or whether it shall be greater. I think, with the court, in the case of The Isaac Allerton, that the proportion of the property lost must enter into consideration. In a case in which, out of property worth $200,000 in danger, only the value of $50,000 was rescued, I would give a smaller percentage for salvage than I would in a case where, other circumstances being equal, property worth $50,000 was in danger and was all saved. In the first case, other circumstances being the same, and the service such as equally to deserve. a liberal allowance, I might feel it unjust to give more than onetenth; while, in the second, I might thing it equally unjust to allow less than one-half.

The many cases cited in the arguments of counsel show, apparently, a great latitude of discrepancy in the amounts of salvage de creed; yet I think if they are studied with some reference to the proposition set forth in The Allerton Case, they can be well nigh harmonized. But, whether with or without reference to this consideration, I will now proceed to notice some of the cases cited at bar.

In the case of The Thetis, 3 Haggard, 14, much relied upon by counsel for the respondent, one of his Britannic majesty's ships, having on board bullion to the amount of $810,000, belonging to private persons, sank off the Brazilian coast in a cove or inlet between two islands. The salvage was effected by vessels and their crews of his majesty. It was a case, as the judge said, "quite out of the ordinary class of salvage cases;" alluding, I suppose, to the fact that the treasure was private property, was lost by a public vessel, and was recovered by ships and persons in the government service. It had been for a long time held in England that where persons in government employment effected salvage, they were to be allowed “adequate remuneration;" but it had not been held that they should also be allowed the stimulent of the bounty which is awarded to voluntary salvors who are not employed in the public service. The case is described in the syllabus as one of "salvage of private treasure and government stores (lost on board a king's ship) by officers and men of the royal navy. Comparative claims of the admiral and subordi nate officers. One-fourth of gross value awarded. Upon appeal a further sum awarded of £12,000, ($60,000.) Gross quantity of the treasure recovered, £157,000, ($785,000.) The whole sum deducted for salvage, admiralty claim, and for expenses being £54,000, ($270,000.)" The work of salvage had consumed 18 months, and had employed a good many men, and several ships, as well as expensive material. Here there was loss by a public ship of nearly half of a private treasure. The salvage was performed by public vessels, and by persons in government service; and, notwithstanding the outright loss of nearly $25,000, there was allowed in the form of salvage (or further loss) more than one-third of what was saved. In the previous case of The Mary Ann, 1 Haggard, 158, the question was whether the officers and crew of a revenue sloop of his Britannic majesty, whose duty it was to give aid to distressed British vessels, should be awarded salvage in a case in which they had come to the aid of a ship in great distress, bound from Jamaica, and found in utter helplessness off the

western coast of Ireland. She had been under continued stress of weather, was full of water, was out of provisions, and was drifting fast towards the rocks. She was boarded, and the ship and cargo, though greatly damaged, saved. The demand of the libel was "for remuneration of salvage services," not for the extraordinary bounty given to voluntary salvors. The court said:

"Undoubtedly the parties may fairly claim a remuneration. Although the ship belongs to the state, and although there is an obligation upon king's ships to assist the merchant vessels of this country; yet, when services have been rendered, those who confer them are entitled to an adequate reward.”

In this case there had been great loss; there was far from a complete saving of property; it was saved by men whose duty it was to attempt the task; and yet, although the salvors demanded and could only recover a fair remuneration for their services, the court awarded. one-tenth.

In the case of The Amerique, 1 Am. Law & Eq. 17; S. C. L. R. 6 Priv. Co. App. 468, only 10 per cent. was given, although there was no loss of ship and cargo, the steam-ship Amerique having been found floating in the ocean abandoned by officers, crew, and passengers, and having been simply towed into port. It was a case of technical derelict, but the other ingredients of a salvage service were wanting. The court gave but one-tenth, on the express ground that the services rendered were inconsiderable, and the demand out of all proportion to them. When enterprising mariners find a ship worth hundreds of thousands of dollars floating quietly on the ocean, it does not require the stimulant of a 25 or 50 per cent. bounty to inspire them to tow her into port. The court looked at the reason of the law, and not at the letter, in this case, and refused to "stick in the bark."

In the American case of the Steam-ship Swiftsure, 4 FED. Rep. 463, the ship, mistaking the channel, went ashore on the sand beach north of Cape Charles at 9 A. M. of a clear day in May, 1880, on a smooth sea, and lay there until 2 o'clock waiting to be floated off by a tide; her chief officers drunk. At that hour two very strong steam-tugs, which, in pursuing their regular business, had been looking for vessels coming in to be towed, came along-side, and on being asked to go to work, made fast two hawsers to the stern of the ship, and the two tugs, pulling together, and aided by the powerful propeller of the ship, soon got her afloat and out to sea, when they let

her go, and she came herself into the port of Baltimore. The value of ship and cargo together was $125,000. There was no damage; everything was saved. Here the owners could well have afforded the allowance of a liberal bounty, in addition to a fair remuneration for actual service, if the case had contained the ingredients which make up every true salvage service; but it did not contain those ingredients. The danger of the ship at 2 o'clock, whatever it might have become 12 hours later, after night had supervened, was in fact very inconsiderable; and the service of the two tugs was very little more than that of towage. The salvors were in absolutely no risk. The skill shown was no more than what the rudest tugmen who had never seen a wreck might have exhibited. The time was but three hours; for the tugs were already out there in the course of their regular calling, looking for tows. The judge thought that the ship was only in prospective peril, because, at the time the tugs went to work with her, the wind and sea were increasing, and that part of the coast was dangerous, and liable to sudden storms. This peril was the only salvage ingredient in the case, and it was prospective. But for it the service would have been strictly one of towage. And so the judge says, as if apologetically for admitting the element of bounty in his award at all:

"The allowance in such cases is intended to be sufficiently liberal to make every one concerned eager to perform the service with promptness and energy, and also to encourage the maintenance of steam-vessels sufficiently powerful to make the assistance effective. It would be contrary to the spirit of the maritime law to reduce the salvage compensation below the standard of liberal inducement, and it would equally frustrate its purpose if the allowance should be so large and so out of proportion to the services actually rendered as to cause vessels (in critical situations) to hesitate or decline to receive assistance because of its ruinous cost."

And so, rejecting the demand for $40,000 as exorbitant, the judge awarded the sum of $2,500.

In the case of The Blackwall, 10 Wall. 1, where a ship on fire at anchor in the harbor of San Francisco was saved by city firemen, aided by a tug, there was much damage by the fire, and the water thrown by the firemen; but the ship and cargo, after the extinction of the fire, were valued at $100,000. The firemen were at work 30 minutes. Though the ship was in great danger, neither the firemen nor their engine, nor the assisting tug, were in any serious danger, if any danger at all, during the service. The case was wanting in some of