Welcome v. The Yosemite

In these cases the seamen belonging to the engineer’s department on the steam-yacht Yosemite have sued for 12 days’ wages. Most of them had signed shipping articles on the first of February, 1881, and performed their duties from that day to the 12th, when, upon the discharge of the chief engineer and first and second assistant engineers, they left the ship in a body, while she was moored at the wharf, against the orders and protest of the captain and owner. The defense is desertion, which, under the general rules of the maritime law, is made out upon satisfactory proof of leaving the ship…