Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/246

 Admiralty, (2d Ed.) § 272, et seq.,] and in the opinion of the Hon. John Baxter, circuit judge of this circuit, in a late case, (The General Burnside, ante,) in the eastern district of Michigan, to which my attention is called by counsel, but which is not yet printed, and a manuscript copy only bas been furnished. For the reasons aforesaid it is recommended that libellants’ claim be preferred over the several claims for insurance, and over the claim upon mortgage found in Schedule A, because of its higher rank; and over the several claims in the same schedule for towage, supplies, and labor, being in the same general rank, because of its being the first in suit. The Globe, 2 Blatchf. 427; also note in same case, 433; The Triumph; also Benedict’s Admiralty, (2d Ed.) § 560, p. 332; also 1 Wendell, 39; ''The People ex rel. Jennings v. Judges, etc.''

A small amount of some of the claims in said Schedule A, of the same general rank as that of libellants, accrued at a later date than said libellants’ claim, as appears from the schedules annexed to the several petitions, though much the greater portion were of an earlier date. The rule being that the lien takes rank in the inverse order of date as to season of navigation on the western lakes and rivers, (instead of voyages, as to ocean navigation,) it is found that none of the said claims of equal general rank are entitled to priority over libellants’ claim, by reason of the fact, which has been shown in the evidence before me, that said vessel was out of the United States, and beyond the reach of the process of their courts of admiralty, nearly ail the time which intervened between the accruing of libellants’ claim, in October, 1878, and her actual seizure under process issued out of this court in this cause on the tenth of May, 1879. It thus appears that there was no lack of diligence on the part of the libellants, whereby, by reason of the season of navigation of 1878 having expired before they brought their suit, other claims of the same general rank could gain a preference. “Lien holders should have the current season of navigation to enforce their security, and such reasonable time after the commencement of the next season as may be necessary to arrest the vessel.” The Hercules, 1 Brown’s Ad. 560.