Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/841

 M'cARTY V. STEAM-PSOPELLEB OITT OF NEW BEDPOBD. 827 �grounds of public policy, the law bas attached to it a lien upon the ship.. This feature is deemed of such essential impor- tance that an express agreement on the part of seamen to waive the lien will be disregarded. "Admiralty courts will ■withhold their sanction from such agreements, not only upon equitable considerations growing put of the improvidence and want of intelligence of seamen in their bargains, but also upon considerations of public policy." Betts, J., The Sa/rak Jane, B. & H. 414. "Every maritime nation has a deep in- terest in the protection and preservation of seamen, as a class of men of indispensable necessity for the purposes both of peace and war. Their preservation, therefore, for the service of the country, becomes an object of public policy." Ware, J., Hutchinson v. Combs, 1 Ware, 65. Now, it is obvions that the necessary resuit of a garnishment of wages in an action at law is the destruction of the seaman's lien upon the ship. The only resuit of the proceeding of garnishment is to secure a Personal liability on the part of the garnishee to apply the money to the payment of the plaintiff's debt. That is the sole object of the proceeding. It has been said that garnish- ment is a compulsory assignment, accomplished by the pro- cess and similar in legal effect to a voluntary assignment of the debt by the debtor. But it is only the personal liability of the garnishee that can be so assigned. An assignment of bis wages by the seaman himself does not transfer the lien. The A. D. Patchin, 12 Law Eep. 21. By a garnishment of wages no transfer to the attaching crediter of the seaman's lien upon the ship is effected. The lien is simply destroyed. The very act of the common-law court in acquiring jurisdic- tion to enforce the seaman's demand against the owner of the ship, puts an end to the seaman's lien. Where such is the necessary resuit of the garnishment, the proceeding will not lie, for it is not permitted by means of garnishment to deprive the defendant of the benefit of his contract. The case in hand direetly involves the application of this principle, for here the ground taken is that Hare cannot proceed against the ship. and it will not be contended that Eddy, his crediter, can, in the second district court of the county of Bristol. ����