Note 24 — Chapter XIII · SALVAGE AND GENERAL AVERAGE
Reading edition
Teutonia v. Erlanger, 248 U. S. 521.
[25] See § 10, this title, infra.
[26] The reason is that the master "derives his authority from the implied consent of all concerned in the common adventure" (The Hornet, 17 How. 100). "The character of agent respecting the cargo is thrown upon the master by the policy of the law, acting on the necessity of the circumstances in which he is placed" (The Gratitudine, 3 C. Rob. Adm. 240).
[27] "Where the sacrifice, while for the general benefit of the whole adventure, was also for the particular benefit of the cargo, it was not a subject of general average" (The Mary, 1 Sprague 19).
[28] Expenses voluntarily and successfully incurred, or the necessary consequences of resolution voluntarily and successfully taken, by a person in charge of a sea adventure, for the safety of life, ship and cargo, under the pressure of a danger of total loss or destruction imminent and common to them, give, the ship being saved, a claim to general average contribution (Abbott on Shipping, 537, note).
[29] Thus where a tug abandoned her tow in order to save the tug; the owners of the tow were not entitled to general average contribution because it was not a part of the ship or cargo.
[30] Probably the earliest recorded case is that mentioned in Jonah 1, where cargo was jettisoned to lighten a ship in peril on a voyage from Joppa to Tarshish. The elements of general average were present, though it does not appear that an adjustment was made.