The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-10-05
Salvage.

The claim on the part OF the captain and crew
of the Achilles, to be allowed salvage on the spe-
Gle saved by that vessel from the burning ship
MastiG. was decided Saturday afternoon, by His
Honor Justice Robertson, decreeing $500 sal
wage upon the specie, and the costs of Court and
o~ne-tenth of net proceeds of other property saved
and sold at auction. As the amount of the specie
was a little more than $50 900, it will be seen
that the salvage with costs added falls q little
short of ten per cent.
The interest excited in the public mind by this
case leads us to present a sketch of the general
doctrine of that part of maritime law, which we
chiefly take from "Abbott on Shipping" When
ever service has been rendered in saving property
on the sea or wrecked on the coast, the service is,
in the sense of maritime law, a salvage service.
But the property must have been actually saved,
good intentions and exertions, however heroic
and perilous, if ~fruitless, not being entitled to
any compensation in order to give the allowance
of salvage,-which allowance indeed in the in
fancy of ommerc was paid by a share of the
rescued property, but is now commonly settled
by a payment of money. Property derelict, that
is abandoned without hope of recovery or inten-
ton of returning to it, does not vestin the finders
exclusively they have only "a lien upon it for
their services
The claim is to be settled by a court of admi-
rally, which is a court of the law of nations,
having jurisdiction of all things done upon and
relating to the sea, or in other words, all trans
actions and proceedings in relation to commerce
and navigation and to damages or in uries upon
the sea. This jurisdiction has been asserted in
repeated instance by the Hawaiian Court of Ad-
miralty, and is only what belongs to it as the
Court of a recognized power. The principles by
which the rate of salvage is determined are thus
stated by Sir John Nicholl.
Salvage is not always a mere compensation
Tor work and labor various circumstances, upon
public considerations, the interests of commerce.,
the benefit and security Of navigation, the lives
OF the seamen, render it proper to estimate a sal
wage reward upon a more liberal scale. The in
gradients of a salvage service are, first, enterprise
in the salyors in going out in tempestuous weather
to assist a vessel in distress. risking their own
lives to save their fellow-creatures and to rescue
the property of their fellow-subjects secondly,
the degree of danger and distress from which the
property is rescued, whether it was in imminent
peril and almost certainly lost if not at the time
rescued and preserved thirdly, the degree Of
labor and skill which the salvors incur and dis
play and the time occupied-lastly, the value.
Where all these circumstances occur, a large and
liberal reward ought to be given, but where none
or scarcely any take place the compensation can
hardly be denominatcd a salvage compensation
it is little more than a mere remuneration pro
opere Ell lahore"
TM general principles as to allowance of sal
wage are the same in American as in English
Jurisprudence, and looking to the current Of de-
cisions it will be found that rarely less than ono
third or more than one-haB of the property saved,
is awarded, unless the services have been very in
considerable or the amount of property has been
very great. We have heard Of an instance where
all The property saved was decreed to the salvors.
a wrecking craft on her way to wreck a vessel
grounded upon one of the reeA which have made
the neighborhood of the Bahamas so unhappily
notorious, was informed that the crew had en-
barked on a raft. Immediately changing her
course the wrecker searched carefully through a
perilous region for three days, and found and res
cued the passengers on the raft, then turning to
the vessel she stripped her of what remained, but
in the lost three days, the sea had done its work.
The cargo had been mostly destroyed. For this
praiseworthy conduct the Court gave all the little
amount saved to the salvors.