In the execution of the duties prescribed by this part of the act, the consul is instructed: 1. That all vessels, parts of vessels, and any portion of their cargo belonging to citizens of the United States, saved and brought into the consular jurisdiction, after being wrecked, or in consequence of any disaster at sea, are to be proceeded with in the same manner as if the vessel had stranded within the consular jurisdiction; and it salvage shall be claimed and allowed by a competent tribunal, the remainder of the effects, or the balance of their proceeds, if sold shall be disposed of in the same manuer as is directed with respect to intestate's estates; provided, in the case of salvage, that the court deciding the same will permit the consul to receive the effects and balance after paying the salvage. 2. In some countries (as in Sweden) chartered companies have the privilege of taking possession of all property wrecked; in others it may be vested in particular magistrates or officers. In all these cases the consul is not to interfere with the legal function of the proper officer; but he may demand, as the representative of the absent master or owner, or as his official adviser if he be present, to assist at the taking of the in ventory, the sale, and all other proceedings in relation to the property. It is his duty to protect the interest of the owner, and, if his reasonable requests are not complied with, to take the necessary evidence, and transmit it to the Department of State. 3. When any accident of this kind happens within his jurisdiction, the cousul is to give immediate notice to the Department of State, designating the vessel and the owners or masters. 4. When there is no impedimeut from the laws of the country, all proceedings in relation to property wrecked are to be the same with those prescribed for the property of intestates. By an act of the Congress of the United States, passed the 28th February, 1803, it is in substance directed, that every master of an American vessel shall, on his arrival at a foreign port, deposite his register, sea letter, and Mediterranean passport, with the consul, vice consul, commercial agent, or vice commercial agent, under a penalty of five hundred dollars, which the consul, vice consul, &c., &c., may recover in his own name, for the use of the United States, and that whenever a clearance from the proper officer of the port shall be produced to the consul, he shall deliver up all the ship's papers, provided the master shall have complied with the provisions of the act of 28th February, 1803, and the act to which it is a supplement, (that is to say) the act of 14th April, 1792. By another section of the same act, it is directed, that whenever a vessel belonging to an American citizen shall be sold in a foreign port, and her company discharged, or whenever a mariner, a citizen of the United States, shall, with his own consent, be discharged in a foreign country, it is the duty of the master or commander to produce to the consul, vice consul, commercial agent, or vice commercial agent, the list of the ship's company, certified according to the first section of the act of 28th February, 1803, and to pay to such consul, &c., &c., for every mariner being designated on such list as a citizen of the United States, three months' pay, over and above the wages which may be due to such mariner; twothirds to be paid by the consul to the mariner discharged, upon his engagement on board of any vessel to return to the United States, and the remaining third to be retained for creating a fund for the payment of the passage of mariners, citizens of the United States, who may be desirous of returning to the United States, for the maintenance of American seamen, who may be destitute in such port; and the sums retained for such fund, shall be accounted for to the treasury every six months by the person receiving the same. The under officers, (below that of captain) are included in the provisions of this section; but the two months' wages are not to be paid in any case, unless the person so discharged has engaged on board of some vessel to return to the United States. If no occasion offers of a direct return, an engagement on board of a vessel ultimately to return, will be sufficient, or, if no such vessel offers, the seaman will be entitled to his two months' wages on his shipping for an intermediate convenient port. Under the first of these sections, it will be the duty of the consuls im mediately on the arrival of an American vessel in his consulate, should the master neglect to deliver his ship's papers, as is directed by the law, to apprize him of the necessity of so doing, by showing him the law that requires it, and of the penalty he will incur by refusal or neglect. When received, the papers are to be kept together in a place as safe as possible, to guard against fire and other accidents; and the consul, on receiving such papers, shall make an entry in his consular record, specifying the time of delivery, the name of the vessel, the master, and what is the description of the papers deposited, as register, sea letter, &c., &c.; and, when the master shall produce the clearance of his vessel, shall have complied with the directions of the act above recited, the consul shall, without delay, deliver up the papers, and shall make an entry in his consular record of the time of such delivery. The provisions of the acts with which the master is obliged to comply before receiving these papers, are: 1. If any of the seamen are discharged, he must have paid three months' wages of such of them as, by the shipping articles or description list of the seamen, shall appear to be American citizens. If they ap pear to be such by either of these papers, no other evidence is required or permitted. 2. If a vessel be bound for a port in the United States, and there are destitute American seamen in the port, he must agree to take such seamen on board as he shall be requested to do by the consul, not exceeding two seamen for every one hundred tons burden of the vessel-on the ternis he may agree on with the consul, not exceeding ten dollars for each seaman. 3. He must pay the fees for the following services, or such of them as have been rendered by the consul for the master or his vessel, according to the rules established by law, that is to say: 1. For authenticating, under the consular seal, any act whatever, which may be made, or passed in by the master, or at his request, for the concerns of the vessel, or its owners or freighters, two dollars. 2. For any certificate of the discharge of a seaman, fifty cents. These are the only fees for the payment of which, by the acts of Congress, a consul has a right to detain the ship's papers. For all other dues, the consul may require payment at the time the service is performed, or refuse his agency until they are paid for, or se cured to his satisfaction; but the consuls are earnestly advised to avoid as much as possible, all contentions of this nature with their countrymen, which tend to degrade our national character abroad. When a vessel is sold under a decree of a court as having become unseaworthy, in consequence of any accident or stress of weather, aud the crew are discharged in consequence of such sale, the three months' wages are not to be required; but if the vessel is found not to be seaworthy in consequence of some decay or defect at the inception of the voyage, the seamen are not to lose their wages on account of the fault of the owners, and the three months' wages are to be exacted If any fine or penalty shall be incurred by the master of an American vessel under any of the laws abovementioned, the consul shall send to the Department of State, a certificate of the fact, under the consular seal, with a proper description of the vessel, designating the port to which she belongs, and the place of abode of the master; to the end that suits may be instituted for the recovery of the penalty. By the fourth section of the said act of 28th February, 1803, it is made the duty of consuls to provide for the mariners of the United States, who may be found destitute within their districts, sufficient subsistence and passages to the United States, in the most reasonable manner, at the expense of the United States, subject to such instructions as the Secretary of State shall give, and the section also provides for the manner in which such mariners are to be transported to the United States. Under this section, the consuls are instructed : 1. That all seamen shipped as American seamen are entitled to the benefit of its provisions, and they shall not be refused the relief provided for by it, under pretence that they are not to really American citizens. 2. That the relief to be provided shall include board, lodging, medical attendance, and clothing, when necessary; all to be on the most reasonable scale, consistent with the comfort and proper support of the individual. 3. That persons applying for relief be examined touching the manner of their being left destitute, and, if it shall appear from such examination that they have been discharged from any American vessel contrary to the provision of the third section of the act of 28th February, 1803, or that any other provisions of the said act or other laws of the United States have been violated, in every such case it shall be the duty of the consul to transmit a copy of the examination of the mariner to the Department of State, with such other information as may enable it to cause prosecution to be instituted for such breach of the laws, designating the place at which the necessary witnesses will probably be found. Where piracy, muliny, or any other offence against the laws of the United States, shall have been committed on board of any vessel of the United States coming into the consular district, it is the duty of the consul, after taking the depositions necessary to establish the facts, to apply to the local authorities for means of securing the offenders while they remain in port, and to provide the means of sending them, without delay, to the United States for trial; and, in all such cases, where the vessel, on board which the offence was committed, is not bound to the United States, the consul is directed to procure two of the principal witnesses, to be sent hoine with the person accused; and he is at the same time, to transmit certified copies of all the depositions he has taken in relation to the offence; an exact detail of all its circumstances; and such information as may be necessary to secure the conviction of the offenders. Great care must be taken in all cases of accusations against mariners, by their officers, not to confound a simple and casual disobedience of orders with the crime of mutiny, which has, in some cases, been made, in order to justify a discharge of seamen in a foreign port, contrary to the directions of the act. In this, as in all other cases, the cousuls are particularly instructed, while on the one hand they support the masters of vessels in the exercise of their proper authority, on the other to discourage and prevent all oppression of seamen by their officers. Consuls are authorised to grant passports to American citizens, which must be authenticated by their signature, and the consular seal. Great care and circumspection are required in the exercise of this duty, that passports be given to none but American citizens; and to give such passport to an alien, knowing him to be such, is an offence punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars, to which the President will always add deprivation of office. The same observations apply to certificates, that property belonging to aliens is the property of citizens, knowing the fact to be otherwise; by which offence a much higher penalty is incurred, the punishment being a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding three years. Consuls, therefore, in all such cases, will require such evidence as will show clearly that they had good reason to believe the truth of the facts they certify. By the revenue laws of the United States, consuls are authorized to give certificates of the landing of merchandise, to obtain the benefit of drawback. As great frauds upon the revenue have sometimes been committed by obtaining certificates without a due examination of the articles, consuls are instructed to give no such certificates without personal inspection or full proof. Authority is also given by the same laws to certify invoices of goods shipped for the United States; but the shipper is entitled to include in one invoice all the goods he may ship by the same vessel. When there are several seaports in a consular district, to which American vessels resort, it is the duty of the consul to appoint some fit person to be consular agent in such port, who shall correspond with, and make his returns to him, (the consul,) who shall transmit copies of them with his own quarterly returns The following are the fees allowed by law to be taken by the consuls of the United States for services they may have performed: 1. For authenticating, under the consular seal, every protest, declaration, deposition, or other act which captains, masters, marines, seamen, passengers, merchants, or others as are citizens of the United States, may respectively choose to make, the sum of two dollars. It would appear by the limitation to citizens of the United States, that the fee for this service was not designed to be prescribed where the ser vice was rendered to persons not citizens. In all such cases therefore, where the service is rendered to an alien, the consul is at liberty to charge according to the fees allowed to notaries in the country where he resides. 2 For taking into possession, inventorying, selling and finally settling, and paying or transmitting according to law, the balance due the per sonal estate of any citizen who shall die within the limits of his consulate, five per centum on the gross amount of such estate. If part of such estate shall be delivered over before a final settlement, two and a half per cent is allowed on the part so delivered as is not in money, and five per cent. on the gross amount of the residue. 3. For granting a certificate of the delivery of merchandise under the revenue laws, one dollar, and for administering the oath, twenty-five cents. 4. For every verification and certificate of an invoice, two dollars. But every shipper shall have a right to include all articles shipped by him in the same invoice. 5. For every certificate of discharge of any seaman in a foreign port, fifty cents. 6. And for receiving and paying the amount of wages due on such discharge, two and a half per cent. 7. On the deposite of a ship's papers, the consul shall give a certificate thereof under seal; and, on the delivery of them, a like certificate, for which he is entitled, as above, to two dollars each, making the whole of the fees for the deposite and delivery of the papers, four dollars, which is not to be exceeded. 8 No other or greater fees are to be charged to American citizens for the services above enumerated; but if American citizens, or others, require other services, they may be charged at the rate allowed to notaries in the same place for the same services. In addition to the provisions of the acts above mentioned, the ninth section of the act of April 14, 1792, makes this general provision:"That the specification of certain powers and duties in this act, to be exercised or performed by the consuls and vice consuls of the United States, shall not be construed to the exclusion of others resulting from the nature of their appointments, or any treaty or convention under which they may act." Consuls to Barbary are more of diplomatic than commercial agents, not only as it regards their vocation, but also as it respects their compen-f sation They receive regular annual salaries; and their pay does not in the least depend on fees. Consuls of the United States, generally so called, are, in effect, agents for commerce and seamen. They receive no yearly salaries, (except at Paris and London, where they have an annual salary of $2,000,) and their compensation is derived from the fees which are allowed by law. Consuls of the United States, for commercial purposes, are regularly admitted and recognized, as to their official functions, in the ports of Europe, but in the colonies of the European nations, agents for commerce and seamen, mostly exercise the duties of their stations under courtesy, without any formal recognition. Consular Uniform.-Single breast coat of blue cloth, with standing cape or collar, and ten navy buttons in front; one button on each side of the cape; four on each cuff; four under each pocket flap; and one on each hip, and in the folds; two on each side in the centre; and one on each side of the same, at the lower extremity of the skirts. The front, (from the cape down to the lower extremity of the skirts,) cuffs, cape, and pocket flaps, to be embroidered in gold, representing a vine composed of olive leaves; and the button holes to be worked with |