Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/191

 176 FEDERAL REPORTER. �up, specifying the motive of the jettison, and enumerating the articles thrown overboard or damaged. This is signed by the per- sons who took part therein, and transcribed into the log-book. At the first port touohed at the captain must, within 24 hours after his arrivai, attest the statement contained in the deliberation. �So, in the elaborate work of Hoechster & Sacre, vol. 2, p. 946, it is said: �" The act [the basis of the claim for general average] should be a vohuitary act agreed to after a consultation with the crew, and in the coiumon iuterest. It should be justified by the fear of a peril certain and imminent, and have for its object to preyent a total or considerable loss by a less sacrifice." Page 960: "A jettison is justifled only by extraordinary necessities, when it is a question of lightening the ship to prevent her foundering, by relieving her when she la stranded, or of quickeniiig her speed to escape the pursuit of an enemy." �Section 702 of the Dnteh Code provides for a case precisely like the one under consideration : "When a ship is prevented, from exist- ing shoals or shallows or banks, from leaving the place of departure, or reaching her place of destination, with her f ull cargo, and a part thereof must be conveyed to the ship by or discharged into lighters, Buch lightering is not considered as an average." See, also, Cau- mont, title, "Avaries," §§ 31, 32, 33. These expenses are, however, allowed where the vessel is obliged to enter the harbor by a storm or the enemy's pursuit. Code of Portugal, art. 1816, §§ 14, 16, 18; Code of Spain, art. 936, § 5; Code of Italy, art. 509, §§ 10, 14; France, art. 400, §§ 7, 8. AU of the continental Codes, so far as I have examined them, appear to restrict claims for general average to "cases where a voluntary sacrifice is made to save the vessel and cargo from a greater loss. If the allowance of general average can be made in the case under consideration, I see no reason why it ia not equally allowable whenever a tug or lighter is employed to assist a vessel over a bar at the port of departure or of destination, or to relieve a vessel whenever and wherever, in the course of her voyage, she may happen to touch the bottom, be her situation never so safe, if she happens to require assistance to get off. Such a ruling would be extending the doctrine of general average to cases never con- templated by any writer upon maritime law, either in Europe or America, to which my attention has been called. ��� �