Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/438



By the seventeenth clause the sailors of Brittany were restricted to one meal a day from the kitchen, while those of Normandy had two meals; and when the ship arrived in a wine country, the master had to provide them with wine. The practice of serving out a certain allowance of food is very ancient, and to prevent jealousies, complaints, and quarrels on this account, the law prescribed a specified quantity to be supplied to each man exactly alike. When wine was provided, the mariner had one meal per day, but when water alone was served out, he had two meals.

The eighteenth article provided, that when a ship was unladen, the sailors could demand their freight; but from those of them having neither bed, chest, nor trunk on board, the master could retain a portion of their wages, till the vessel was brought back to her final port of destination. It was ruled that the wages were not due till the work had been entirely done, unless a special agreement subsisted to the contrary, for "freight was the mother of wages."

The rights of sailors hired per day, or week, or month, where freight was not procurable, were secured by the nineteenth article, which stipulated that if an engagement was broken off by war, pirates, or the command of his sovereign, the seaman was entitled to have a quarter part of his wages for the full term of his engagement.

The twentieth clause provided that, when in a foreign port, only two sailors from the ship might go