porations themselves; but that does not interfere with the personal immunity of the shareholders. Whenever the public interest requires the employment of a great aggregation of capital, exposed to immense risk, some limitation of responsibility is necessary in order that men may be induced to contribute to the enterprise. As Grotius says, in reference to this very matter of ship-owners," Men would be deterred from owning and operating ships, if they were subject to the fear of an indefinite liability for the acts of the master." Jure B. & P., lib. 2,

c. 11, s. 13.

But it is enough to say, that the rule of limited responsibility is now our maritime rule. It is the rule by which, through the act of Congress, we have announced that we propose to administer justice in maritime cases. We see no reason, in the absence of any different law governing the case, why it should not be applied to foreign ships as well as to our own, whenever the parties choose to resort to our courts for redress. Of course the rule must be applied, if applied at all, as well when it operates against foreign ships as when it operates in their

favor.

English cases have been cited to show that the courts of that country hold that their statutes prior to 1862, which in generality of terms were similar to our own, did not apply to foreign ships. See The Nostra Signora de los Dolores, 1 Dod. 290; The Carl Johan, cited in The Dundee, 1 Hagg. Adm. 109, 113; The Girolamo, 3 id. 169, 186; The Zollverein, 1 Swa. 96; Cope v. Doherty, 4 Kay & J. 367; s. c. 2 De G. & J. 614; The General Iron Screw Collier Co. v. Schurmanns, 1 John. & H. 180; The Wild Ranger, 1 Lush. 553. We have examined these cases. So far as they stand on general grounds of argument, the most important consideration seems to be this, that the British legislature cannot be supposed to have intended to prescribe regulations to bind the subjects of foreign States, or to make for them a law of the high sea; and that if it had so intended, it could not have done it. This is very true. No nation has any such right. Each nation, however, may declare what it will accept and, by its courts, enforce as the law of the sea, when parties choose to resort to its forum for redress. And no persons subject to its jurisdiction, or seeking justice in

its courts, can complain of the determination of their rights by that law, unless they can propound some other law by which they ought to be judged; and this they cannot do except where both parties belong to the same foreign nation; in which case, it is true, they may well claim to have their controversy settled by their own law. Perhaps a like claim might be made where the parties belong to different nations having the same system of law. But where they belong to the country in whose forum the litigation is instituted, or to different countries having different systems of law, the court will administer the maritime law as accepted and used by its own sovereignty.

The English courts say that, as foreigners are not subject to their law, nor entitled to its benefits, they will resort to the general law of general liability when foreigners are litigants before them. Where do they find such general law? In the law of nature? or the civil or common law? Is not the maritime law, as their own legislature or national authority has adopted it, as imperative as either of these? Does it not, in the British judicial conscience, stand for the law of nature, or general justice? As for the civil and common laws, they are only municipal laws where they have the force of laws at all. The better grounds for the English decisions seem to be the peculiar terms of the acts of Parliament on the subject, and the supposed policy of those acts, as being intended for the encouragement of the British marine. From these considerations, as grounds of construction, the conclusion may have been properly deduced that the law was intended to be confined to British ships. The question, it is true, has ceased to be of practical importance in England, since the act of 1862 (25 & 26 Vict., c. 63), by which the owners of any ship, British or foreign, are not to be answerable, without their actual fault or privity, for any loss or damage to person or property, to an amount exceeding £15 per ton of the ship's registered tonnage, or its equivalent in case of foreign ships. But the former English decisions are thought to have a bearing on our law, because the acts of Parliament to which they related, in their principal clauses, were conceived in the same broad and general terms as our act of Congress. Some of the clauses of the British acts, however, relating to registered ton

nage and other particulars, admitted only a special application to British ships; and perhaps these clauses did require a restricted construction of the whole acts to such ships.

But there is no demand for such a narrow construction of our statute, at least of that part of it which prescribes the general rule of limited responsibility of ship-owners. And public policy, in our view, requires that the rules of the maritime law as accepted by the United States should apply to all alike, as far as it can properly be done. If there are any specific provisions of our law which cannot be applied to foreigners, or foreign ships, they are not such as interfere with the operation of the general rule of limited responsibility. That rule, and the mode of enforcing it, are equally applicable to all. They are not restricted by the terms of the statute to any nationality or domicile. We think they should not be restricted by construction. Our opinion, therefore, is that in this case the National Steamship Company was entitled to the benefit of the law of limited responsibility.

But it is objected that the appellants did not properly, and in due time, claim the benefit of the law. Under this head it is strenuously contended that the appellants did not comply with the rules of this court adopted in December Term, 1871. Without adverting to the fact that these rules were not in existence until long after this litigation had been pending, we may say, once for all, that they were not intended to restrict parties claiming the benefit of the law, but to aid them. Some form of proceeding was necessary to enable ship-owners to bring into concourse the various parties claiming damages against them for injuries sustained by mishaps to the ship or cargo, where they were entitled, or conceived themselves entitled, to the law of limited responsibility, and where they were subjected or liable to actions for damages at the suit of the parties thus injured. The rules referred to were adopted for the purpose of formulating a proceeding that would give full protection to the ship-owners in such a case. They were not intended to prevent them from availing themselves of any other remedy or process which the law itself might entitle them to adopt. They were not intended to prevent a defence by way of answer to a libel, or plea to an action, if the ship-owners should deem

such a mode of pleading adequate to their protection. It is obvious that in a case like the present, where all the parties injured are represented as libellants or intervenors in the cause, an answer setting up the defence of limited responsibility is fully adequate to give the ship-owners all the protection which they need.

But it is objected that they did not follow the statute by giving up and conveying to a trustee the strippings of the wreck and the pending freight. It is sufficient to say that the law does not require this. It contains two distinct and independent provisions on the subject. One is, that the shipowners shall be liable only to the value of the ship and freight; the other is, that they may be discharged altogether by surrendering the ship and freight. If they failed to avail themselves of the latter, they are still entitled to the benefit of the former kind of relief. The primary enactment, in sect. 4283, Rev. Stat., is, that the liability of the owner for any loss or damage, without his privity or knowledge, shall in no case exceed the amount or value of his interest in the vessel and her freight then pending. Two modes for carrying out this law are then prescribed, one in sect. 4284, and the other in sect. 4285. By sect. 4284, a pro rata recovery against the ship-owner is given to the various parties injured "in proportion to their respective losses;" and it is added: "for that purpose the freighters and owners of the property, and the owner of the vessel, or any of them, may take the appropriate proceedings in any court, for the purpose of apportioning the sum for which the owner of the vessel may be liable, among the parties entitled thereto."

The other mode of attaining the benefit of the law is prescribed by sect. 4285, which declares that "it shall be deemed a sufficient compliance on the part of such owner, with the requirements of this title, if he shall transfer his interest in such vessel and freight, for the benefit of such claimants, to a trustee, to be appointed by any court of competent jurisdiction, &c., from and after which transfer all claims and proceedings against the owner shall cease." This last proceeding the respondents did not see fit to adopt; but that does not deprive them of the benefit of the preceding section.

As to the form of proceeding necessary to give the respon

dents the benefit of sect. 4254, which declares that either party "may take the appropriate proceedings in any court, for the purpose of apportioning the sum for which the owner of the vessel may be liable," what more "appropriate proceeding" could be taken for this purpose, where all the parties are before a court of admiralty, and where the ship-owners plead their exemption under the statute, than to give a decree against them for the amount of their liability, and to distribute the sum amongst the parties entitled to it?

It seems to us that no additional rules are necessary to attain the object of the law in the case. It is plain enough to execute itself. If there are parties, not represented in the suit, who have claims for damages, it is the respondents' fault for not bringing them in, as they might have done after the rules of 1871 were adopted, by pursuing the remedy pointed out in those rules. But as to the actual libellants and intervenors in the suit, there is no reason in the world why the respondents should not be decreed to pay the value of the ship's strippings and remnants into court, nor why such amount should not be distributed pro rata amongst the claimants.

We think that this should have been done. If any further inquiries are necessary to be made, in order to ascertain the proper amount to be paid by the respondents, as depending upon the value of the articles saved, including freight or passage money realized, the court below can institute them in a proper way.

The question raised as to the rule of damages which should be adopted, in estimating the actual loss of the owners of the guano, was properly decided by the Circuit Court. The rule is, the prime cost or market value of the cargo at the place of shipment, with all charges of lading and transportation, including insurance and interest, but without any allowance for anticipated profits. When, as in this case, the goods have no ascertainable market value at the place of shipment, the guano being a natural deposit owned by the Peruvian government, indirect means must be resorted to for the purpose of ascertaining the real value at that place. The Circuit Court had the evidence of an experienced merchant on this subject, who based his estimate upon the price for which the goods were