Samuel Blatchford

“ If the ship-owner will not forward them, the freighter is entitled to them without paying anything. One party, therefore, if he forward them, or be prevented or discharged from so doing, is entitled to his whole freight; and the other, if there be a refusal to forward them, is entitled to have them without paying any freight at all. The general property in the goods is in the freighter; the ship-owner has no right to withhold the possession from him, unless he has either earned his freight or is going on to earn it. ”

“ As in the case of a disaster to the ship in the course of a voyage the whole freight is payable if, by the fault of the owner of the cargo, the master is prevented from forwarding the cargo from an intermediate port to its destination, it is contended in the present case that the libelants have a right to recover the whole agreed freight, because they had a right to send the cargo to Liverpool and earn full freight, and were prevented from doing so by the action of the underwriters, who became, by abandonment, the owners of the cargo. ”

“ It is an inherent element in a contract of affreightment under a bill of lading, that the vessel shall enter on the voyage named, and begin the carriage of the goods shipped, or, as it is technically called, break ground, before a claim to freight money can arise, unless the shipper of the goods, the vessel remaining ready to enter on the voyage, undertakes to reclaim the goods. ”