CO129-008 - Foreign Office - 1844 — Page 40

# Rules regarding the discharge of destitute Seamen

The Merchant Seamen's Hospital,

Seamen

1. British Merchant Seamen may, for the sake of more strictly defining their class, be considered to be of two classes, viz: Those who may board ship direct from England, and those who may have been serving in Vessels in the Country, Colonial, or Coasting trade.

2. When a Seaman of the former class shall have been sent as a destitute Seaman to Hospital and is fit to return to his duty, he shall be ordered on board the first vessel proceeding to England agreeably to the Act of Parliament, and a memorandum of the Expenses incurred in sending him home, to be recovered from the Owners of the Vessel in which he was originally shipped.

3. With respect to those seamen who may belong to the latter class, the expense of all cases now in Hospital or that may occur up to the first of Decr next will be borne by the Govt, but as from that day the penalties for breaches of the Merchant Seamen's Act are to be enforced, as announced in the Govt Notification of the 4th of Octr 1843, No 30, in like manner, the Master, Owner or Consignee (where the Law will admit) of the last vessel from which any destitute Seaman may have been regularly discharged or left behind on any pretence, whether at Hongkong, Whampoa, Chusan, or any other place in China, will be held responsible and obliged, by a summary suing and proceeding, to pay all Expenses incurred on such seamen, and without reference to the period he may have served on board the last vessel.

Masters, Owners, and Consignees of all Vessels, will therefore understand that in addition to the Penalties laid down for infractions of the Merchant Seaman's Act, they will further be obliged to pay all expenses of men whom they may discharge, and who may afterwards be sent to Hospital as destitute Seamen by order of H: E: the Major General Commanding in China.

(Signed) Richard Woosley

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