of shipment, and so expressed in this bill of lading, and extra freight thereon paid, nor in any case for an amount exceeding the invoice cost thereof." Also, in the case of White, the following clause: "The goods to be taken from the ship's tackles, where the ship's responsibility shall cease, and to be taken along-side by the consignee, immediately the vessel is ready to discharge, or otherwise they will be landed by the master, and deposited at the expense of the consignee, and at his risk of fire, loss, or injury, in warehouse on the company's wharf, or sent to the public stores, as the authorities at the port of discharge shall direct, and, when deposited in the warehouse, to be subject to storage and other charges as customary;" and in the other three bills of lading, the last-named clause, changing the words "in warehouse" to the words "in the warehouse provided for that purpose," and omitting the words "and other charges as customary."

The district court decreed for the libelant. It held that December 29th was so cold a day as to render it impossible to land oranges without freezing them. The district judge said in his decision:

"The weather continued cold, indeed, below zero, until the following Monday. The steamer commenced to land oranges on the day of her arrival, and on that day and the following Thursday and Friday landed the whole consignment. The necessary consequence was that the libelant's oranges were frozen, and their value for the most part destroyed. Objection was made by the libelant to the landing of the oranges, because of the unsuitable weather."

He also held that the oranges were not injured by the "act of God," or the "effect of climate;" that the vessel was not "ready to discharge," when she could not make a proper discharge; that there was no necessity for landing the libelant's oranges when they were landed; that no duty required the destruction of the libelant's oranges for the purpose of landing the cargo of other persons; and that there was time before the vessel sailed for her to have landed the oranges in suitable weather, and to have taken in her outward cargo. There was a decree that the libelant recover his damages, with a reference to ascertain them. On this reference there was no proof as to the invoice value, but evidence only as to the sound market value of the oranges in New York at the time. The commissioner reported the damages to be the value of 1,230 barrels of oranges at $5 per barrel, and 163 barrels at $4.50 per barrel, less the charges for transportation by the claimant, being $6,883.50, less $1,099.49, amounting to $5,784.01, with interest from December 29, 1880. The claimant excepted to the report (1) because the damages had been fixed at the market value in New York, instead of an amount not exceeding the invoice cost; (2) because they had not been found at an amount not exceeding the invoice cost; (3) because there had not been credited against the damages such proportion thereof as the libelant might have prevented by efforts to preserve the oranges instead of abandoning them. The district judge made the following decision on the exceptions:

"The ship having landed the fruit without a permit, and also at a time when it was frozen as soon as landed, and this against the express objection of the consignee, the consignee had the right to decline to pay the freight and abandon the fruit, and hold the ship liable for its sound value, the same not only having been frozen, but also become forfeited to the government by reason of having been landed without a permit. The commissioner has reported the damages to be the sound value of the fruit, and in my opinion the report is correct. The exceptions are therefore overruled."

A decree was ordered for the libelant for $7,018.31 damages, and interest, and $215.65 costs. The claimant appealed. In this court an amended answer has been put in, and further proofs have been. taken on both sides.

The claimant contends that the injury to the oranges was inevitable from the moment the hatches were uncovered and the ship broke bulk; that the claimant was justified in discharging the libelant's oranges, because he had obtained the delivery order and the permit, and given a check for the freight; and that this virtual order to discharge was not revoked till after the discharge had been commenced, and the cold air had got into the hold of the ship. The answer to this view is, that the preparations which the libelant made were only preparations to be ready to take his oranges when they could be safely discharged. They did not amount to a request to discharge the oranges in such weather. If a general ship carries, in winter, oranges, which cannot be safely discharged in freezing weather, and agrees to deliver them in good order, she takes the risk of such discharge, unless she protects herself against it by some provision in the bill of lading. Here there was no such provision. The freezing was not the "act of God" nor the "effect of climate," within the meaning of the bills of lading. The negligence of man exposed the oranges to be frozen. "Effect of climate," in the sentence "effect of climate, or heat of holds," means the effect of climate in the passage of the vessel from a tropical climate northward, or vice versa, during the voyage, in its action on cargo in the vessel, and not such exposure in landing as occurred in this case.

As to the amount of damages, the libel sets forth the shipments, and avers that thereupon "the agent of the vessel executed the bills of lading, to which the libelant begs leave to refer as part of this, his libel herein." The stipulation under which the bills of lading were put in evidence by the libelant, and which was itself put in evidence by the libelant, states that the four bills of lading were "duly issued and delivered" by the claimant, upon the shipments being made upon the vessel at Kingston, "as alleged in the article of the libel herein." In accepting each bill of lading the shipper accepted the terms of the contract it contained, and the libelant cannot now be heard to say that the shipper did not know its contents, or received it after the shipment, or that he, the libelant, did not know its contents, or that the clause as to invoice value has been waived in other cases. The provision that the claimant shall not be liable in any case for an amount exceeding the invoice cost of the oranges is distinct..

The libelant, under the circumstances, had no duty to take care of the oranges. As to him they stood as if they were still in the vessel, not discharged. They were wholly in the custody and at the risk of the vessel.

The libelant is entitled to recover the invoice cost, with interest, according to the findings, and his costs in the district court. The elaimant is allowed its costs in this court.

See The Egypt, ante, 320.

THE SARAH E. KENNEDY.

MCCARTHY and others v. THE SARAH E. KENNEDY.

(District Court, D. New Jersey. November 7, 1885.)

ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION OF THE DISTRICT COURT FOR NEW JERSEY-VESSEL AT ANCHOR ON HUDSON RIVER.

A vessel lying at anchor and afloat between Jersey City and Manhattan Island, on the Hudson river, on the westerly side of the middle of said river, is within the territorial limits of the state of New Jersey, and hence within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States district court for New Jersey.

On Libel. Motion to dismiss, etc.

Bedle, Muirheid & McGee, for libelants.

Owen & Gray, for respondent.

NIXON, J. This case comes before the court on a question of jurisdiction. A number of libels for seamen's wages having been filed against the brig Sarah E. Kennedy, a monition was issued and placed in the hands of the marshal, who boarded the vessel while she was lying at anchor and afloat on the Hudson river, between Jersey City and Manhattan island, several hundred feet east of the Morris-street pier of Jersey City, and on the westerly side of the middle of said river. The respondents claim that the place of said seizure was outside of the admirality jurisdiction of this court, and that the libels should be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Since the adoption of the federal constitution it seems to have been the policy of congress to make the jurisdiction of the district courts of the United States co-extensive with the limits and boundaries of the states. Thus, the second section of the judiciary act of 1789 constituted the state of New Jersey one federal district, and the state of New York another. And although the latter state, in consequence of its extent and large growth in population, has since been subdivided into three districts,-the northern, southern, and eastern,-the jurisdiction of each is expressly limited to designated counties of that state, and the waters thereof. See sections 531, 541, 542, Rev. St. U. S. No authority is found in any act of congress for the courts.

of the district in one state to exercise jurisdiction over, the territory of another.

Before the revolution, and running far back into the colonial times, there had been a dispute between New York and New Jersey as to the true boundary line of the respective states. The territory of both states was originally embraced within the patent or grant of March 12, 1664, from Charles II. to his brother, the Duke of York. On the twenty-fourth of June, following, the latter conveyed to Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret the land which now constitutes the state of New Jersey, being described in said conveyance as "all that tract of land adjacent to New England, and lying and being to the westward of Long island and Manhattan island, and bounded on the east, part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river; and hath upon the west, Delaware bay or river, and extendeth southward to the main ocean as far as Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware bay; and to the northward as far as the northermost branch of the said bay or river of Delaware, which is in 41 deg. 40 min. of latitude, and crosseth over thence in a straight line to Hudson's river, in 41 deg. of latitude." From that time onward, the people of the state of New Jersey have claimed that it was entitled to the exclusive jurisdiction and property of and over the waters of Hudson river and the bay of New York, to the middle of the river and to the channel of the bay, from 41 deg. north latitude to the said bay. The people of New York, on the other hand, asserted the right of the state to jurisdiction and property over the said river and bay, to the low-water mark on the western shore.

It is not necessary here to express an opinion which was the better claim, inasmuch as commissioners appointed by the respective states to determine and settle the proper boundary line came to an agreement or compact on the sixteenth of September, 1833, which was confirmed by the legislature of the two states, and was assented to by the congress of the United States by an act approved June 28, 1834. 4 U. S. St. 708. That agreement, in its first article, fixed the boundary line between the two states "from a point in the middle of Hudson river, opposite the point on the western shore, in the 41 deg. of north latitude, to the main sea, at the middle of the river, of the bay of New York, of the waters between Staten island and New Jersey, and of Raritan bay to the main sea."'

The territory of the state of New Jersey has always constituted this judicial district. Where a dispute exists between neighboring states respecting the true boundary line, it would seem a reasonable conclusion that when such line is fixed by commissioners of the states, with the assent of congress, the jurisdiction of the national courts should follow and extend to the limits of the boundary thus agreed to and established. Whatever may be the arrangements between the states as to police regulations and quarantine laws, they cannot be construed into a surrender of the admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the

United States throughout the state. It was probably, in part at least, to prevent any such construction of the compact, that the congress, in its act assenting to the same, added another section to said act of ratification, providing that nothing therein contained should be construed to impair, or in any manner affect, any right of jurisdiction of the United States in and over the islands or waters which formed the subject of the agreement.

The principles which are to govern in the decision of this case are very clearly indicated by the supreme court in In re Devoe Manuf’g Co., 108 U. S. 401; S. C. 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 894. It arose upon an application for a writ of prohibition to this court restraining it from exercising jurisdiction under the following circumstances: In the month of April, 1882, a libel in personam was filed in this court against the Devoe Manufacturing Company, a New York corporation, to recover damages arising from a collision. The corporation not being found within the district, a monition was issued out of the court in October following, commanding the marshal to cite the respondent if it could be found, and if not, then to attach its goods and chattels in the district. The officer seized a tug-boat belonging to the corporation, and made return that he had attached the vessel as the property of the respondent. It appeared in the case that the tug when seized was afloat in the Kill von Kull, between Staten island and New Jersey, fastened at the end of a dock at Bayonne, about 300 feet below low-water mark, and about half a mile from the entrance of the Kill into the bay of New York. A motion was made here to set aside the service of the process; the respondent claiming that the boat, when seized, was not within the district of New Jersey, but was within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Eastern district of New York. This court denied the motion, holding that the tug, when taken by the marshal,-being fastened to a dock on the New Jersey shore,-was within the New Jersey district, although far below the low-water line of the river. See Hall v. Devoe Manuf'g Co., 14 Fed. Rep. 183. The application was then made to the supreme court to issue a writ of prohibition to this court restraining it from exercising the jurisdiction thus claimed. The court was unanimous in refusing the writ. Mr. Justice BLATCHFORD filed an able opinion carefully reviewing the former grounds of controversy between the states of New Jersey and New York, and, among other things, stated that "we are all of the opinion that when the act of congress of 1789 declared that the New Jersey district should consist of the state of New Jersey, it intended that any territory, land or water, which should at any time, with the express assent of congress, form part of that state, should form part of the district of New Jersey."

It was thus announced for the. first time, by the highest judicial authority, that the limits of the jurisdiction of the federal courts in the several states varied from time to time as the boundaries were changed with the assent of the congress of the United States.