Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/169

THE PAUL REVERE. 157 �the orders of the master, and kept in confinement during the following four months until after the arrivai at Yokohama, and that his conduct during this time was good, and permission to return to duty had been repeatedly sought from the captain by himself and others of the crew, Jield, that the cook was entitled to his wages up to the time of his disoharge at Yokoliama. �In Admiralty, Action for eeaman's wages. �This action was brought by the libellant (colored) to recover his •wages as cook on board the ship Paul Revere, on her voyage from New York to Yokohama and back, from June 24 to September 24, 1879. On Sunday morning, September 1, 1878, about two months after the commencement of the voyage, an affray between the cook and the steward took place in the galley, in the course of which the cook fired two shots of a small pistol at the steward, by one of which the steward was wounded in the wrist. The libellant was immediately seized, put in irons, and kept so, for the most part, as the mate tes- tiued, until about a month before reaching Yokohama, when, being sick, the irons were removed from him, though he was still kept under restraint. The vessel arrived at Yokohama on Deeember 24, 1878, and on the sixth of January the captain made a complaint in writing against the libellant before the consul of an assault with a deadly weapon. Upon the following day the libellant was brought before the consul, who, on the seventh, eighth, and ninth of that month, examined the steward, the first and second officers, and the carpenter of the vessel. On the thirtieth of January he rendered a decision as follows : �"After careful consideration of the evidence in this matter, and in view of the fact that the weapon used by the accused is scarcely more than a toy, and that it would have been very diilicult with it to have made a dangerous wound, and that it therefore hardly cornes within the definition of a 'dangerous weapon,' and the accuser exhibiting himself as a man of irascible temper, and the evidence sliowing that the offence charged against the accused was the resuit of an altercation, one of many between the same parties, and that the accuser has been discharged the ship by consent of the master, the latter con- sidering him a troublesome and violent man, and that the accused has now been a long time in confinement: �" I am of opinion that the offence charged is not of such a serious character as to warrant me in subjecting the government to the expense of transpor- tation of the accused and that of the witnesses to the United States, and of his trial there, and I cousider that he has been sufTiciently punislied already. �" It is therefore ordered that he be discharged from arrest. �[Signed] " Thos. B. Van suben, Consul General. �"Yokohama, January 31, 1879. ��� �