made, or in whose hands the papers of the vessel are, shall collect of the master or agent of such vessel the sum of forty cents a month for each and every seaman who shall have been employed on the vessel since she last entered at any port of the United States; and that the Consular Officer shall retain possession of the papers of the vessel until the money shall have been paid, and that in default of the payment the sale or transfer shall be void, excepting as against the vendor. These statutes have, however, been held not to Treasury decision. apply to vessels engaged in the whale fisheries. No hospital dues therefore will be exacted on the sale or transfer of such vessels in a foreign port. The moneys collected on account of hospital dues should be reported to the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury at the same time with the quarterly account for the relief of seamen (see Form No. 125 for the mode of making the return); and they may be applied towards the payment of such expenses as may be incurred in behalf of destitute seamen. 190..Every master of a merchant-ship of the United States engaging a seaman at a place out of the United States in which there is a Consular Officer is required by law to procure the sanction of such Officer, and to engage the seaman before him. The agreement is to be made as shown in Form No. 15, and must be signed in duplicate by the master before any seaman signs. Each seaman must sign in duplicate in presence of the Consular Officer, and such 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 made as required by law. (Form No. 16.) 191..Consular Officers will be particular to see that the engagements of seamen are signed in their presence by the seamen, or in the presence of some duly authorized employé of the Consulate, and that the terms and conditions of engagement are clearly understood by them. This injunction should be carefully observed in view of the grave abuses that have arisen from the shipping of the seamen by unauthorized shipping agents, and without a knowledge of the terms of contract or of the kind of service for which they were engaged. Shipment of sea men. R. S, secs. 4517, 4518. Consul's duty. 4517. Rules as to shipment. 4518, 4523. 192.. The rules governing the engagement of seamen before a shipping commissioner in the United States, as laid down in Title LIII of the Revised Statutes, apply also to R. S., secs. 4516, such engagements made before a Consular Officer. A master engaging a seaman in any place abroad where a Consular office is located, otherwise than in accordance with that Title, incurs a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars, for which the vessel is liable. The shipment of a seaman under such circumstances is void; the seaman may leave the ship at any time, and shall be entitled to recover the highest wages at the port of shipment, or the sum agreed to be given him at the date of shipment. In case, however, of loss by desertion or casualty, the master may ship a number of seamen equal to the number so lost, without incurring the penalty, provided he reports the loss or desertion to the Consular Officer at the first port at which he shall arrive. The seamen must then be formally engaged and entered on the shipping articles. Shipping articles. 193..The shipping articles are deemed to contain all the Olcott's R., 232. conditions of the contract with the crew as to service, pay, voyage, and all other things, and must be produced by the master to any Consular Officer whenever the latter may think them necessary to the discharge of his duties towards any seaman who may require his assistance, or for any other proper purpose connected with his duties to the vessel or crew. The provisions of the statute in relation to erasures or interlineations have been held to apply only to alterations that would vary the effect of the papers in respect to seamen. Erasures immaterial in this respect would be disregarded. Seamen on American or foreign-built vessels. 194..In the case of American or foreign-built vessels purchased abroad and wholly owned by American citizens, it is known that the crews are usually made up of men who are not American citizens and who have not acquired the character of American seamen under the law and as set forth in paragraph 199. Seamen of this class, when not serving under a contract made in the United States, are not regarded as within the jurisdiction of a Consular Officer as to their shipment or discharge. But seamen engaging on such vessels who are American citizens, and foreigners who have ac quired and maintained the character of American seamen, are to be shipped and discharged before the Consular Officer in the same manner as seamen on regularly-documented vessels. ping articles are 195.. The attention of the Department has been called to When new shipinstances in which masters of vessels, in shipping seamen in used." foreign ports, have shipped them on new shipping articles when the original articles had not been filled up and could have been used for the purpose. These additional articles are subsequently suppressed in order to evade the payment of the marine-hospital tax, or for other purposes. Consular Officers will be careful to enter the shipment of seamen on the original articles until the space is exhausted; and whenever it becomes necessary to use additional articles they should firmly attach them to the original articles in such a manner, either as prescribed for the attachment of the Consular certificate to an invoice, or otherwise, that the new articles cannot be separated from the original without discovery or mutilation. 196.. Complaints have been made in regard to the employment of shipping agents in foreign ports for the shipment of seamen, and it is represented that at some Consulates undue facilities are granted to favored shipping masters to the exclusion of others of equal respectability, and even to prohibiting the latter from transacting business with the Consulate. The selection of an agent to obtain seamen for shipment belongs to the master of the vessel, and in the absence of controlling local regulation, he is at liberty to employ any person he may see fit. The Consular Officer has no authority to interfere, nor to confer upon any shipping agent privileges which are not conceded to others. He is also without authority to designate such an agent as specially employed by the Consulate, or to permit an agent to use a title, as "American Shipping Agent," or "United States Shipping Agent," indicative of a special relation to the Consulate. While it is expected that a Consular Officer will inform himself as to the character of such agents, and will, on the request of a master, recommend such as he believes to be efficient and trustworthy, he is forbidden to insist upon the employment of any particular agent. Abuses that have arisen Shipping agents. Shipment and discharge of seamen at places. 1879. in these respects require that attention should be called to them; and any authenticated instance of such partiality or favoritism which shall be reported to the Department of State will incur its marked disapproval. 197.. An appropriation has been made by law for the payLondon and other ment of the expenses of shipping and discharging seamen at Act of January 27, London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Belfast, and Hamburg, the amount to be allotted to each Consulate to be determined by the Secretary of State. A proviso in the statute requires that the fees for shipping and discharging seamen at those ports shall be paid into the Treasury. The fees so received are to be reported in the quarterly record of fees, and the account for the expenses under this appropriation should be sent directly to the Fifth Auditor, and should be supported by vouchers showing, as far as practicable, the items of expenditure. Master to receive mails, &c. 4203, 4204. 198.. It is made the duty of the master of any vessel of R. S. secs. 3976, the United States bound from a foreign port to a port in the United States, before clearance, to receive and to securely convey all such mails as any Diplomatic or Consular Officer may offer for that purpose, and to promptly deliver them to the proper authorities at the port of destination. He is also required to receive on board all such bullion, coin, United States notes and bouds, and other securities as may be delivered to him by Diplomatic or Consular Officers for transportation to the United States. American seamen defined. R. S., sec. 4612. ARTICLE XIII. American Seamen-Discharge of Seamen. AMERICAN SEAMEN. 199.. Consular Officers are instructed that the following are to be regarded as American seamen within the meaning of the laws relating to the discharge, relief, wages, and extra wages of seamen, viz: 1o. Seamen, being citizens of the United States, regularly shipped in an American vessel, whether in a pors of the United States or in a foreign port. 2o. Foreigners regularly shipped in an American vessel in a port of the United States. 3o. Seamen, being foreigners by birth, regularly shipped R. S., sec. 2174. in an American vessel, whether in a port of the United States or a foreign port, who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, and have served three years thereafter on American merchant-vessels. For the purpose, however, of protection, as against the claims upon them of other nationalities, such seamen are to be deemed American citizens after the filing of the declaration of intention to became such citizens, in a competent court. It is the duty of Consular Officers to satisfy themselves that seamen claiming relief under this statute have complied with its provisions; if not so satisfied, they will be authorized to treat them as foreigners in this respect. Definition of terms. 200..For the purposes of these regulations, the terms "American seamen" and " seamen or mariners of the United States" are synonymous, as are also the terms "American vessel" and "vessel of the United States." The principles which are maintained by this Government in regard to the protection, as distinguished from the relief, of seamen are well settled. It is held that the circumstance that the vessel is American is evidence that the seamen on board are such; and that in every regularly-documented merchant-vessel the crew will find their protection in the flag that covers them. 201.. The shipment of a seamen in a port of the United Ms. Dept. of State. States as an American citizen is to be held prima-facie evidence that the seaman is, by birth or naturalization, a citizen; and when the nationality of the crew does not appear from the crew list, it will be presumed that they are citizens of the United States. 10 C. Cls., 454. Bond for return of seamen. 202.. It is required by law of the master of every vessel bound on a foreign voyage, or engaged in the whale-fishery, S., 576. to enter into a bond in the sum of four hundred dollars that he will exhibit the certified copy of the crew list to the first boarding-officer at the first port in the United States at which he shall arrive on his return, and also produce the persons named therein But the bond shall not be forfeited on account of the master not producing any of the persons contained in the list who may be discharged in a foreign country with the consent of a Consular Officer, certified in writing, under his hand and official seal, to be produced to |