Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/840

 826 FEDERAL EBPOBTEB. �Hare but McCarty is a party libellant. Of course, the attach- ment issued at the instance of the crediter of Hare against Hare's wages is no bar to the proceeding so far as McCarty is concerned, and if this answer prevail these owners will be harassed by two suits — one at the instance of Eddy, for Hare's wages in the second district court of Bristol county, and the other by McCarty here ; and further liable, for aught I know, to as many other suits as there were members of the crew; while Hare must bear the expense of one suit and McCarty of another, and this in the face of a statute of the United States declaring that there shall be but one suit, in which ail the crew shall be joined as complainants. These provisions of the act of 1790 net only furnish strong evidence that at that early day wages of seamen were understood to be exempt from attachment, but they are wholly inconsistent with the existence of a right on the part of a creditor to attach a seaman's wages in an action at law, and therefore seem to compel the conclusion that such attachments are not allowed by the laws of the United States. �The same conclusion is arrived at from an application, to the peculiar contract of the mariner, of the prinoiples of the common law invoked by courts of law in cases of garnishment. Garnishment is said to be, in eiïect, a suit by the defendant in the plaintifï's name without the defendant's concurrence, and, indeed, in opposition to his will. Drake on Attachments, § 461. It is well settled that garnishment cannot have the effect of changing the nature of the contract, and it does not lie where its effect will be to allow a creditor of the principal debtor to enforce a contract in a manner different from its legal effect and the agreement of the parties. Sawyer v. Thomp- son, 4 Foster, 515. If these principles be applied to the sea- men's contract, it will be found necessary, as I think, to declare that the wages due a seaman constitute a demand of such a character that the law forbids an attachment of them in au action at law. �"The contract of hire formariners stands on reasons pecu- liar to itself." Ware, J., in The Elizaheth and Jane, 1 AVare, 85. One characteristic element in this contract is that, upon ����