a place in which the ship can lay afloat, and within which place she can discharge part of her cargo; and then when she has discharged a sufficient part of her cargo, she can get into the port which is named. They never entered into a contract to go somewhere to a port which was not safe, but a port which would be safe if they stopped at some other place near it, and with a little manipulation of the cargo made the ship fit to go into that port. That was not the bargain. The bargain was in plain English, that she should go to a port, provided the other party named a port, which in itself and by itself was a port safe for a ship of such a burthen.” Brett, L. J., said :—“ It should be a port in which she might always lay and discharge afloat; the meaning of that is, that it should be a port in which, from the moment she went into it in the condition in which she was entitled to go into it, from that moment she should be able to lay afloat until the time when she was fairly discharged. The condition in which she was entitled to go into this port would be fully loaded,' and she was not bound to unload before she got to that port. The order to go to Lowestoft was not to go to Lowestoft Roads, but to go to Lowestoft harbour. The question must be whether Lowestoft harbour was a place into which she could go fully loaded, and lay afloat from the moment she went into it so fully loaded until she was discharged. In my opinion it was not.' The same principle applies where a ship is chartered to "deliver her cargo at any safe berth as order ed." Thus, where it was provided that the chartered vessel, being loaded with her cargo, should "proceed to the Mersey (or so near thereto as she may get,) and deliver the same at any safe berth as ordered on arrival in the dock at Garston:"-Held, in an action for demurrage, that the carrying voyage ended, and the obligation of the charterer to take delivery commenced, not on the arrival of the vessel in the dock, but on her arrival at a berth as ordered.1 Lord Esher, M. R., said :-" Charter-parties often state that the voyage is to end when the ship arrives at a particular port, or part of a river, or in a certain dock; and Nelson v. Dahl' shews how these charterparties are to be construed, but it does not deal with a charter-party which describes the end of the voyage by reference to an option to be exercised by the charterer. In the present case, the ship was to go to the Mersey and deliver the goods at any safe berth as ordered on arrival in the dock at Garston. Now, supposing the berths in the Garston Dock had been numbered, and that the contract had said that the ship was to deliver the goods at, for example No. 1 berth in the Garston Dock, Nelson v. Dahl shews what the construction of such a clause would be: namely, that the voyage would not be at at an end until the ship had arrived, and was ready to deliver the goods at No. 1 berth. But does not the contract say that which is equivalent to what I have supposed? When the contract says that 1 Tharsis Sulphur Co. Ld. v. Morel, L. R. (1891) 2 Q. B. 647. 2 L. R. 12 Ch. D. 568; L. R. 6 App. Cas. 38. the ship is to deliver the goods at any safe berth as ordered,' does not that give the plaintiffs the right to fix the place where the carrying voyage is to end? In my opinion, apart altogether from authority, it does. In Tapscott v. Balfour,1 it was laid down that if delivery was to be at one of two or more places 'as ordered,' the moment the charterer names the place he fixes the end of the voyage, as much and with the same consequences as if the place had been named in the charter-party. Tapscott v. Balfour1 was decided nearly twenty years ago, and, unless the Courts thought it clearly wrong, they ought to follow it, inasmuch as it decided a question as to the construction of mercantile documents in that form in frequent use; and upon the basis of that construction many contracts have since been entered into. So far, however, from having any doubt of the correctness of the decision in Tapscott v. Balfour, in my opinion it was clearly right. The words 'as ordered,' would have no meaning unless they gave the charterer an option to settle the end of the voyage. In that case the option was to name a dock; here it is to name a place in. a dock, but it is such a place that, when the charterer has exercised his option, the place named by him, if it had been named in the charter-party, would fix the end of the voyage. Therefore when he has named that place, the voyage is at an end when the ship arrives there, and the rights and 1 liabilities of the parties are determined accordingly. To my mind, Murphy v. Coffin' follows and adopts Tapscott v. Balfour, and was rightly decided." "And in Graham v. Mervanji Nusserwanji,3 it was laid down that where a vessel is chartered to load a full and complete cargo, and being so loaded to proceed therewith to a 'safe port or so near thereunto as she may safely get, and deliver the same always afloat;' the master is not bound to sign bills of lading for, or to sail to, a port where the vessel cannot, by reason of her draught of water, lie and discharge 'always afloat' without being previously lightened, even if the costs of the requisite lightening would, by the charter-party fall on the charterers. 4 But apart from express stipulation, the port named need not be physically safe at the very time of the order being given, or of the vessel's arrival. A temporary obstacle does not make it unsafe. The port however must be politically safe at the time when it is named by the charterer. A safe port' words are not satisfied by the natural safety of the port named if the vessel would be exposed to confiscation or capture upon entering it." being stipulated for, the Where a ship was chartered to proceed to a safe port near Cape Town, the charterer did not name 1 L. R. 12 Q. B. D. 91. 3 I. L. R. 5 Bom. 539. 2 L. R. 8 C. P. 46. • Parker v. Winlo, 27 L.J.Q.B. 49; Allen v. Coltart, L.R. 11 Q.B.D. 782. Ogden v. Graham, 31 L. J. Q. B. 26. , The Teutonia, L., R. 4 P. C. 171. Vessel to be tight, staunch, a port, but offered to send a super-cargo with the ship to do so. Held, that his naming a port was a condition precedent to the obligation of the shipowner to commence the voyage.' Where there is a contract to carry goods in a ship, whether that contract is in the shape of a bill of fitted for the lading, or any other form, there is a duty on the and strong, and every way voyage. part of the person who furnishes or supplies that ship, or that ship's room, unless something be stipulated which should prevent it, that the ship shall be fit for its purpose. That is generally expressed by saying that it shall be "seaworthy;" and in marine contracts, contracts for sea carriage, that is what is properly called a "warranty;" not merely that they should do their best to make the ship fit, but that the ship should really be fit." Lord Chancellor Cairns in the same case observed:-" Reasonably fit to accomplish the service which the shipowner engages to undertake and perform, the ship cannot be unless it is seaworthy. By seaworthy' I do not desire to point to any technical meaning of the term, but to express that the ship should be in a condition to encounter whatever perils of the sea a ship of that kind, and loaded in that way, may be fairly expected to encounter on the voyage." And it was unanimously held on appeal by the Court of Queen's Bench, affirming the judgment of 1 Rac v. Hackett, 12 M. & W. 724; Ohlsen v. Drummond, 4 Dougl. 356; Bradford v. Williams, L. R. 7 Ex. 259. 2 Per Blackburn, J. in Steel v. State Line S.S. Co., L. R. 3 App. Cas. 72, |