Transshipment

“ They usually carry no flag, and are dirty and lack paint, but they carry a load that would interest the most blasé European. Those bound up-stream, under full sail, like ourselves, are piled with European boxes and bales, from stem to stern; and on top of the freight, in the midst of the freight, sitting on it, stretched out on it, peeping from it, is another cargo of human beings, men, women and children, black, yellow, clothed in all the hues of heaven and the rags of earth. It is an impassive load that stares at us with incurious, unwinking eyes. ”

“ If they are not so accepted, the owner first becomes chargeable whenever, and, it may be safely affirmed, wherever, they so reach his hands. But when the voyage is strangled in its inception, there is no port referable to but the home port of the shipper. Destruction of the vessel there necessarily leads to a return of the cargo into the hands of the shipper. If, permissively, or by express retainer, the master of the disabled ship hires another vessel, transships the cargo, and carries it to the port of original destination, this is a new adventure, voyage, and agency. ”

“ To such doubters, before the war, there was always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. ”

“ A vessel of the United States laden in a foreign country with cargo destined for two or more ports in the territories of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, and a Japanese vessel laden in a foreign country with cargo destined for two or more ports in the territories of the United States, may discharge a portion of her cargo at one port, and continue her voyage to the other port or ports of destination where foreign trade is permitted, for the purpose of landing the remainder of her original cargo there, subject always to the laws and customs regulations of the two countries. ”

“ The ruling of the English courts that even a delivery of the cargo at the port of destination does not entitle the shipowners to any freight whatever seems a somewhat startling innovation upon the ancient rule of the admiralty, that a loss occasioned by a peril of the sea shall be borne as a common burden, and shared proportionately by the ship, cargo, and freight, as well as a departure from the general rule that neither party can put an end to a contract without the assent of the other. ”

“ Ores of every description, on an oversea voyage, should be stowed in a boxed hold, or on platforms in the centre of the ship, thoroughly blocked from the sides. In a word, the proper stowage of a ship, whether as regards her form or the nature of her cargo, is a science which has not been sufficiently studied.
[304] We must ever remember that although, since we relieved our Shipowners of all the restrictions to which they were subjected by the Navigation Laws, they have advanced above all other nations, the shipping of many of those nations are now running them a very close race. ”

“ It seems hardly likely, at the time this book goes to press, that this application of a formerly unused physical law will revolutionize the propulsion of ships.
Nor, as the World War showed Americans, is it wise to depend upon foreign nations to transport all their products [Pg 291] to America and carry all America’s products away. To be healthy the nation should maintain its own cargo fleet, which, in turn, should provide itself with terminal facilities not only at home but also abroad, in order that cargoes may be loaded and unloaded economically and without delay. ”

“ When the vessel is wrecked, or otherwise disabled in the course of the voyage, and cannot be seasonably repaired to perform the voyage, or cannot be repaired without too great delay and expense, the master is at liberty to transship the goods and send them forward in another vessel, so as to earn the whole freight, but he is not entitled to recover for freight if he refuses to transship the goods, unless he repairs his own vessel within a reasonable time and carries them on to the place of delivery. ”

“ United States, 18 L. ed. 200, the actual destination to a belligerent port, whether ulterior or direct, was held to determine the character of the transaction as a whole; that transhipment could not change the effect of the pursuit of a common object by a common plan; and that, if the cargo was contraband, its condemnation was justified, whether the voyage was to ports blockaded or to ports not blockaded; and so as to the vessel in the former case. ”

“ Aside from these considerations, the supposed advantage to be derived from allowing cargo to come in, when considered intrinsically, is without force. Under this theory, two vessels would depart on the same day from a foreign port; one bound to a port in the United States, with cargo, under a charter to foreign citizens to convey their goods into this country; the second ship proceeding in ballast, under charter to American citizens to proceed to the United States and there take cargo. ”

“ The master is also required, when the vessel arrives in the United States, at the same time that he delivers a manifest of his cargo, and if there be none, then when he makes entry of the vessel, to deliver and report to the collector, by manifest, all the passengers taken on board the ship at any foreign port or place, designating age, sex, and occupation, the country to which they severally belong, and that of which it is their intention to become inhabitants ”

“ Its commerce is speculative but vast and successful. It is a frequent circumstance that a ship goes out without a cargo for a voyage around the world. In such a case the captain puts his elder children to school, takes his wife and younger children and starts for some semi-barbarous place where he procures some odd kind of cargo which he exchanges with advantage for another somewhere else; and so goes trafficking around the world, bringing home a freight of the highest value. ”

“ We have held that shipping instructions, given to a freight conductor on a common carrier prior to any movement, put a car into interstate commerce [12] when the instructions were for shipment to an out-of-state destination after a preliminary transit between points in the state of loading. When a shipper delivers his commodity to a common carrier with instructions for billing by such carrier without purposeful delay via another or other common carriers to an out-of-state destination, we think interstate commerce has begun. ”

“ On transferring vessels to foreigners, &c.Sec. 32. And be it further enacted, That if any licensed ship or vessel shall be transferred, in whole or in part, to any person, who is not, at the time of such transfer, a citizen of, and resident within, the United States, or if any such ship or vessel shall be employed in any other trade than that for which she is licensed, or shall be found with a forged or altered license, or one granted for any other ship or vessel, every such ship or vessel, with her tackle, apparel and furniture, and the cargo found on board her, shall be forfeited. ”

“ Foreign necessaries or luxuries must be brought to its ports, either in its own or in foreign ships, which will return, bearing in exchange the products of the country, whether they be the fruits of the earth or the works of men's hands; and it is the wish of every nation that this shipping business should be done by its own vessels. The ships that thus sail to and fro must have secure ports to which to return, and must, as far as possible, be followed by the protection of their country throughout the voyage. ”

“ We proceeded on our voyage for China on the 24th of November, and anchored at Wampoa on the 18th of January, 1807.
Having remained there nearly six weeks, and taken in about half of our cargo, an unfortunate dispute took place between the crew of the Neptune and some Chinese, in which one of the latter lost his life. In consequence of this, the government insisted that a man should be given up in his place, and stopped the loading of the ships to enforce compliance with this demand, threatening, at the same time, to prevent their departure by choking up the second bar. ”

“ To those maritime questions I have long devoted my attention, and I have often been struck at the circuitous course which ships, by the laws which nations adopted, have been obliged to follow. The ocean was meant to be free to mankind, but one nation by its laws dictates the course which the ships of other nations must follow; another nation, by way of retaliation, lays down the only course which it will allow its competitors to adopt. Thus we see ships, for instance, allowed to follow one track with cargo, but compelled to return by the same track, in ballast. ”

“ By a pragmatic of 1500, all persons, whether natives or foreigners, were prohibited from shipping goods in foreign bottoms, from a port where a Spanish ship could be obtained. [59] Another prohibited the sale of vessels to foreigners. [60] Another offered a large premium on all vessels of a certain tonnage and upwards; [61] and others held out protection and various immunities to seamen. [62] The drift of the first of these laws, like that of the famous English navigation act, so many years later, was, as the preamble sets forth, to exclude foreigners from the carrying trade ”

“ This measure, too, is calculated expressly to take our own carriage from us and give the equivalent to other nations: for it is well known, that the shipping of France is not equal to the carriage of their whole commerce; but the freight in other branches of navigation being on an equal footing with only forty livres the hogshead, in ours, and this new arrangement giving them sixty-two livres ten sols the hogshead, in addition to their freight, that is to say, one hundred and two livres ten sols, instead of forty livres, their vessels will leave every other branch of business to fill up this. ”

“ Now, though both countries have every reason to be much satisfied with that treaty, the want is to me very apparent. Free navigation must accompany freedom of commerce. The ramifications of commerce are so numerous and the competition so close that the slightest hindrance to its natural flow, or the smallest increase of freight, either retards, paralyses, or destroys vast branches of it. The trade which your people are now carrying on with England and its colonies and possessions is greatly retarded by the restrictions of the Navigation Laws. ”

“ The captor pays the whole freight, because he represents the enemy, by possessing himself of the enemy's goods by right of war; and although the whole freight has not been earned by the completion of the voyage, yet as the captor, by his act of seizure, has prevented its completion, his seizure operates to the same effect as an actual delivery of the goods to the consignee, and subjects him to the payment of the full freight. ”

“ Our commercial ships and marine infrastructure-and the dedicated men and women who are part of our maritime industry and U.S. Merchant Marine-continue to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing marketplace and the expanding globalization of trade. Our merchant fleet is a key component of our Nation's intermodal transportation system, carrying more than one billion tons of cargo between domestic ports and supporting our connection to overseas markets. ”

“ When you ship in American vessels, it would be well to have the British Consul’s certificate of English property attached to bill of lading and invoice, as in the event of falling in with the numerous privateers, it would save both cargo and vessel in all probability. An American ship recently fallen in with, was released by the Alabama, on account of British Consul’s certificate, showing greater part of cargo to be English property. If you ship in a neutral vessel, we save five per cent. ”

“ The steamship has not only revolutionized commerce, and war, but exchanges. Long before the arrival of the tardy sailing-ship, at her destined port, with her ponderous cargo, the nimble mail-steamer deposits a duplicate of her invoice, and bill of lading, with the merchant to whom she is consigned; and when the ship has landed her cargo, the same, or another steamer, takes back a bill of exchange, for the payment of the freight. ”

“ I understand the ship to be made for the carrying and the preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved with the cargo, it should never be abandoned, unless there appears no possibility of its preservation, and it must cease to exist, except at the risk of throwing overboard both freight and passengers. ”

“ Moreover, the vessels being loaded, must be provided with such certificates, or manifests, or other public documents, as are commonly given to vessels which depart from the ports from whence they have last sailed, containing a specification of the cargo, of the place from whence the vessel has departed, and that of her destination, in order that it may be known whether there are any contraband effects on board of the vessels, and whether they are destined to carry them to an enemy's country, or not. ”

“ As usually understood, to ship a package from one state into another, or from a foreign country into a state, is to accomplish its transportation from the one into the other by a common carrier, and is essentially a continuing act whose performance is begun when the package is delivered to the carrier, and is completed when it reaches its destination. ”