Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/697

 THE ZACE CHaNDLEB. 685 �for wages and damages. The material facts, whioli are undisputed, are that, on the thirteenth day of November last, the libellants were shipped, at the port of Chicago, as searaen, to serve on said schooner at the rate of four dollars per day, for a voyage from Chicago to the port of Erie, in the state of Pennsylvania. No shipping articles were signed, and no stipulation made as to the rights of the respective parties in case the voyage should not be completed that season. The schooner left the port of Chicago on the thir- ieenth of November, on said Voyage, with a full cargo of grain. She encountered very cold, tempestuous weather, and "was finally driven into Green Bay, and, on the twenty-third of November, made the port of Eseanaba, where she \ira8 laid up for the winter, and the libellants discharged.^t being conceded that it was unsafe to prosecute the voyage further that fall. * The niaster ofFered to pay the libellants ihe wages earned, at the contraet price per day, from the time of their employment up'io the time of their discharge. Th'ey demanded thiat the expenses of their return to Chicago should be paid in addiiion to the •Wageg, ' and this being refused, and the captain insisting tha;t he would only pay the wages on condition of a full a-cquittance, they paid their cfwn ■expenses to Chicago, and br<iught this suit. �It is conceded that the men worked f aithf ully and obeyed the commaiids of their officers during the time they were on board the vessel, and in all respects conducted themselves as obedient and capable seamen. It is now contended, on the part of the respondents, that, as that voyage was abandoned and no freight was earned, there is nothing due the libel- lants; while the libellants insist that, as a matter of strict legal right, they were entitled to stay upon the vessel until the completion of the voyage, whether it was that fall or the next spring, and to be paid the wages called for by their contract ; that they were not to blame for the interposition of winter weather, and therefore had the right to complete iheir contract the next season, and that theii employment «ontinued until its completion. ��� �