I suppose it would have been said,
because it was sound policy to encourage them to save all they
could. If we consider that the sailors were regarded as employed
by the ship, we shall understand very readily both the rule and
the exception. "The ship is the debtor," as was said in arguing a
case decided in the time of William III. /2/ If the debtor
perished, there was an end of the matter. If a part came ashore,
that might be proceeded against.
Even the rule in its modern form, that freight is the mother of
wages, is shown by the explanation commonly given to have
reference to the question whether the ship is lost or arrive
safe. In the most ancient source of the maritime law now extant,
which has anything about the matter, so far as I have been able
to discover, the statement is that the mariners will lose their
wages when the ship is lost. /3/ In like manner, in what is said
by its English [32] editor, Sir Travers Twiss, to be the oldest
part of the Consulate of the Sea, /1/ we read that "whoever the
freighter may be who runs away or dies, the ship is bound to pay:
the mariners." /2/ I think we may assume that the vessel was
bound by the contract with the sailors, much in the same way as
it was by the wrongs for which it was answerable, just as the
debtor's body was answerable for his debts, as well as for his
crimes, under the ancient law of Rome.
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