Joseph Story

“ That agreement has not been insisted on here in the argument on either side; and, indeed, being to a mere amicable tribunal, as arbitrators, could not, in a case of this sort, be now insisted upon to bar the jurisdiction of the court. It is wholly unlike the case, where a positive law has fixed the mode of ascertaining the compensation.
No objection has been made to the amount of salvage decreed by the court below, if the libellants are entitled to any. And the objection has been properly abandoned; for the amount under the circumstances is certainly not unreasonable. ”

“ We are of opinion that suits for pilotage on the high seas, and on waters navigable from the sea, as far as the tide ebbs and flows, are within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States. ”

“ At this time the libellants had no official connexion whatsoever with her as pilots. Where then was the obligation on them to go on board, and take charge of a wreck, and to hazard their lives and property, and to apply their labor to deliver the brig and cargo from their present imminent perils, any more than on any other persons? We know of none. We think the whole enterprise was an enterprise of salvage, and not of pilotage. It was a case, where they acted as salvors strictly according to the definition of Sir William Scott. ”

“ It has been also applied to another very meritorious class of cases, we mean that of seamen, who in the ordinary course of things, in the performance of their duties, are not allowed to be come salvors, whatever may have been the perils or hardships or gallantry of their services in saving the ship and cargo. We say in the ordinary course of things; for extraordinary events may occur, in which their connexion with the ship may be dissolved de facto, or by operation of law, or they may exceed their proper duty, in which cases they may be permitted to claim as salvors. ”

“ The pilot boats were then got under weigh, and in about three-quarters of an hour afterwards the libellants, being then on board, and no other persons, the brig floated. At this time the wind was blowing fresh from E. S. E.; and if the brig had not been taken possession of by the libellants she would have been drifted on the west bank, and have become a complete wreck. The brig was then towed by the pilot boats and a steamboat, procured by the libellants, to the port of Mobile, in the course of the two succeeding days. Such are the material facts. ”

“ Walters, (3 Bos. and Pull. 616,) puts a case far short of that, which is here presented, as a clear case of salvage. 'Suppose (said he) a tempest should arise, while the pilot is on board, and he should go off in a boat to the shore to fetch hands, and should risk his life for the safety of the ship in a manner different from that, which his duty required; in such a case it seems to me, that he would be entitled to a compensation in the nature of salvage ”

“ Adm. R. 236, 237. (a) In this last case, Lord Stowell, after saying that the crew of a ship cannot be considered as salvors, gave what he deemed the definition of a salvor: 'What (said he) is a salvor? ”