The Cito

468 MARITIME LAW CASES. Ct. of App.] The Cito. [Ct of app. SITTINGS AT WESTMINSTER. Reported by J.P.AspinAll, and F.W.Raises Esqrs., Barristers at-Law. Thursday, Bee. 1, 1881. (Before BRett, Cotton, and Lindley, L.JJ. The Cito. appeal from Probate, divorce, and admiralty division (Admiralty). Derelict-Freight-Pro rata-Abandonment. Where a vessel is abandoned and becomes a derelict, the owners of cargo on board are entitled to treat the contract of affreightment as abandoned, and are entitled, until the shipowner again gets possession of his ship, to have the cargo delivered to them at any port into which it may be brought by salvors, on giving bail to cover an award of salvage, without payment of any freight to the shipowner. Qucere, as to rights of property in derelict pending adjudication. This was an appeal from the decision of Sir Robert phillimore, by which he had given leave for the cargo of the Cito, which vessel with the cargo on board had been brought into the port of Falmouth by salvors, to be released from arrest without the payment of any freight, or bail being given to answer the claim of the salvors, and on the owners of cargo undertaking to keep an account of sales of cargo. The Cito was a Norwegian barque, and while in the course of a voyage from Wilmington to Rotterdam, laden with a cargo of resin, had been abandoned by her crew, in consequence of bad weather; subsequently she was fallen in with by the Colonist, another Norwegian barque, which put a salvage crew on board and brought her into the port of Plymouth. On her arrival the salvors arrested the ship and cargo by process in the Admiralty Court in a suit for salvage. An appearance was entered in the first instance by the owners of the Cito, and subsequently, but before the ship bad been released, by the owners of the cargo laden on board her, who, on the 27th July 1881, moved the court to release the cargo at once on the owners of it giving bail to the salvors, but without any payment for freight to the shipowners. The application was opposed by the shipowners, but granted by the court, the cargo owner to give bail for 1150l., and undertaking to keep an account of the sale of the cargo. From this decision the owners of the Cito appealed. Dec. 1, 1881.-The appeal came on for hearing. Butt, Q.C. and Slubbs for owners of ship.- Nothing has happened to disentitle the shipowner to carry the cargo to its destination. This case is different from The Kathleen (2 Asp. Mar. L. C. 367; L. Rep. 4 A. & E. 209: 31 L. T. Rep. N. S. 204). There the cargo was deteriorating in value, and it was necessary that it should be discharged and sold, and therefore She shipowners could not have completed the contract of carriage either in their own or any other ship, and therefore could only have been entitled to freight pro rata on a new implied contract, and the court held that such contract could not be implied in the circumstances of that case. Moreover, The Kathleen (ubi sup.) is not an authority binding this court. We submit that, first, if a vessel is brought into a port other than that of her destination as a port of refuge, whether by her own crew or with the assistance of others, or as a derelict, the shipowner has a right to carry the cargo to its destination, if he is able to do so, either in his own ship or another; secondly, if the owner of the cargo requires his cargo to be delivered to...