Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/133

 THE CANADA. 121 �in the sense of the maritime law, in a foreign port, — -that is, a port without the state where she belonged and her owner resided, (The Nestor, 1 Sumn. 74; The Chusan, 2 Story, 460; The Sidtatia, 19 How. 362;) — and therefore the master was authorized as the agent of the owner to employ the libel- lants to aid in the "delivery of the cargo," by discharging it from the hold of the vessel upon the wharf, — that being the essential part of the undertaking and voyage of the ship ; or, as it is appropriately characterized in Benedict's Admiralty, § 285, "the crowning act of maritime commerce, that for which all others labor, and to which all other acts are subor- dinate, and on wMoh the right to freight depends, and which is in fact the great purpose and the only ultimate purpose of a ship — the delivery of the cargo." But in the cases of The Amstel, B. & H. 215, (1831 ;) The Joseph Cunnard, Ole. 123, (1845;) and Cox v. Murray, 1 Abb. Ad. 341, (1848,) deoided by Judge Betts; and The S. G. Owens, 1 Wall. Jr. 370, (1849,) decided by Mr. Justice Grier, it was held or said that the contract of a stevedore was not maritime, and therefore he had no lien upon the ship for his services. �In The A. R. Dunlap, 1 Low. 350, (1869,) Judge Lowell followed these authorities under protest; but in The George T. Kemp, 2 Low. 482, (1876,) he ref used to follow them, and decided in favor of the stevedore's lien, substantially upon the ground that the services and contract of a stevedore con- cern the ship and her owner, her voyage and business, and are, therefore, clearly maritime in their nature; and, al- though he bas no lien therefor upon a domestic vessel unless given by the local laws, yet in the case of a foreign ship the general admiralty law gives a lien, as in the case of a mate- rial man. And, in speaking of the contrary decisions and the reasons given for them, he says: "They are — First, that a stevedore works on land, or on a vessel at the wharf; and, second, that his eoncern is with the cargo rather than with the ship, and they liken him in this respect to the drayman who brings the cargo to the vessel. The notion that the maritime character of a contract for either labor or mate- Tials, or of the remedy for furnishing them independently of ��� �