The Rajah

SPRAGUE, District Judge.

I have . not thought it necessary to look at this case as an ordinary transaction, between merchant and merchant, which is the aspect in which the learned counsel for the respondent has presented it. It is a claim by a seaman, for compensation for marine service, in the nature of wages, and the admiralty deals with contracts respecting such service or compensation, differently from the manner in which a court of common law can treat ordinary transactions.

Seamen have been called the wards of the admiralty, and it habitually exercises a degree of guardianship over them,…