Edward Douglass White

“ Now, it is patent that the foregoing provisions deal, not with the general duty of the owner to furnish a seaworthy ship, but solely with his power to exempt himself from so doing by contract, when the particular conditions exacted by the statute obtain. Because the owner may, when he has used due diligence to furnish a seaworthy ship, contract against the obligation of seaworthiness, it does not at all follow that, when he has made no contract to so exempt himself, he, nevertheless, is relieved from furnishing a seaworthy ship, and is subjected only to the duty of using due diligence. ”

“ The decision in The Caledonia was based, not on the particular character of the defects there referred to, but on the general ground that,u nless there were express words to the contrary, the language of the exempting clause would not be held to apply to defects, whether patent or latent, existing when the voyage was commenced; in other words, that, where the owner desires the exemption to cover a condition of unseaworthiness existing at the commencement of the voyage, he must unequivocally so contract. An illustration of such contract was found in The Laertes, 12 Prob. ”