Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/667

 PBTEBSqN. ^ ;THB, OHÀl|DOS. ^pp �a deviation, and caused a fprfeiture of the insuijaneç; apoft tha vessel and cargo. The rule o{ law ia that adelay bydeparture from the due course of a ypyage, to save property merely, is a deviation, but to save life is not. Cracker v. Jackson, Sprague's Dec. 142; The Boston d Cargo, 1 Sum. 335 ; V'/ie Ewhank & Cargo, Id. 424; Boni v. The Cora, 2 Wash. 84. �Whether a departure in such a case as this can be consid- ered as made to save life may be a question. As between the insured and insurer, if there is any doubt about it, it should be resolved in favor of the former. I have found no case exactly in point, and in the meantime will say, with Mr. Justice Washington, in Bond v. The Cora, supra, that "I will not be the first judge to exelude such a case from the excep- tions to the rule, " that a deviation -works a forfeiture. of the insurance. But the law, in the interest of humanity, will, aa between the insurer and insured, justify a departure from the course of the voyage to, save life in cases where the vessel is under no legal obligation to do so; and, therefçre, even if the Chandos might bave gone to Valparaiso ,to save the life .or limb of the libellant without forf eiting her insurance, it does not follow ,that the, inaster was bound to mate, such departure. For the like reasons and strouger, which exeused the master from going into^ Yalparaiso, he was not bound to put into any port south of San Francisco; and when be reached the point — 39.degree8 30 minutes north latitude^ 140 degrees 20 minutes west longitude — from which it was con- venient to make the latter port, he was quite aa nearïthe mouth of the Columbia as the Golden Gate, and was tberefore justifiable in preferring the former, as itwas on the course of his voyage. �As to the treatment of the libellant on board the Chandos, it does not appear that there is any just ground of complaint, unless it be that the master'ought to bave ascertained that his leg was broken before be did, and at once. His own tes- timony is to the efifect that he did not conclude the leg was broken until July 4th, and that is the entry in his log. But of the truth of this I am in doubt, becanse it appears that he treated the limb as if it was broken, as far as the appliances ����