Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/175

160 FEDEBAIj bbpobtek. �" That he shall, upon his arrivai at a foreign port, deposit his register, etc., with the consul, vice-consul, commercial agent, or vice-commercial agent, if any there be at such port. And it shall be the duty of such consul, etc., upon such master producing to him a clearance from the proper offlcer of the port where his vessel may be, to deliver to such master all of his papers, if he has complied with the provisions of law relating to the diseharge of seamen, etc., and to the payment of the fees to the consular offlcers." �Section 4310 imposes a penalty of f 500 upon the master of any Buch vessel who refuses or neglects to deposit his papers as thus required, the same to be recovered by such consul, in his own name, for the benefit of the United States. �Neither of the officiais named in these sections was to be found at either Hieres or Toulon ; but at the latter port the consul at Mar- seilles was represented by an agent, recognized by the laws of the Dnited States. Section 1674 of the Revised Statutes enacts — �"That «consular agents' shall be deemed to denote 'consular offieers' subor- dinate to their principals, the consuls, exercising the powers and performing the duties within the limits of their consulates * * * at such ports or places different from those at which such principals are located." �By section 1695 the president is authorized to appoint consular agents in such numbers and under such regulations as he may deem proper. By paragraph 17, consular regulations of 1881, consular agents are described as — �"Acting only as the representatives of their principals, and are subject and subordinate to them, and are paid only by the fees collected by them, retain- ing the whole or such portion as may be agreed upon between them and their principals, the residue being received by the principal, under the sanction of the president." �From these provisions of the statutes and established regulations, it is manifest that the consular agent of the United States at Toulon was in law a representative of the plaintiff, and that through him the plaintiff was in fact the consul for the port of Toulon, discharging all the duties of a consul at that port as effectually as if there present attending to them in person; and if the Charter Oak had arrived at Toulon her master would have been bound to have deposited his papers at the consulate in that eity with the agent of the plaintiff, and on faihire so to do would have been liable to the plaintiff for the penalty. �It is objected that the Charter Oak, on her arrivai at Hieres, came from the foreign port of Genoa and not from a port in the United States, and that the statute only requires a ship's papers to be depos- ited with the consul at the first port at which she may arrive after ��� �