INDEX. 593.

SEAMAN'S WAGES.

I. The crew of a steamboat plying between the ports of adjoining states
upon navigable tide water, have a right to proceed for wages due them,
by libel in the District Court of the United States, and have a lien on
the vessel, her tackle and furniture, for such wages. Abbott vs. Steam
' Packet Co., 542.

3. This right to libel the vessel in the admiralty courts for wages, extends
to every officer and seaman who assists in navigating her except the
captain. 16.

3. The officers and seamen have a triple security for their wages: they
may have recourse to the vessel, the owner, and the master. Ib.

4. The seaman's claim for wages follows the ship and its proceeds, in
whose hands soever they may come, is preferred to all other demands,
and constitutes a sacred lien, which continues as long as a single plank
of the ship remains, and extends to the whole amount of compensation
due the seamen. Ib.
SECRET TRUSTS.

The court does not favor secret trusts, and will not allow them to be set

up to defeat the right of creditors. Brooks vs. Dent, 523.
SHERIFF.

See POUNDAGE FEES, 3.

PRACTICE TO CHANCERY, 43 to 45.
SLAVES,

jSee FREE NEGROES.
MANUMISSION, 1, 2.
WILL AND TESTAMEMT, 14.
SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE.

1. A bill for the specific performance of a contract is an application to the
sound discretion of the court, which withholds or grants relief accord-
ing to the circumstances of each particular case, and in the exercise
of its extraordinary jurisdiction in such cases, the court, though not
exempt from the general rules of equity, acts with more freedom than
when exercising its ordinary powers, rysod vs. Watts, 13.

2. The contract must be fair, and just, and certain, and founded on an
adequate consideration, and if deficient in either of these requisites, its
performance will not be decreed; hence the plaintiff who seeks the
enforcement must make out a stronger case than is required of him who
resists the decree. Ib.

3. The contract must also possess the essential ingredient of mutuality,
and in cases of inequality of obligation, it is better to leave the plaintiff
to his remedy at law for damages; for if equity acts at all, it must act
ex vigore, and carry the contract into execution with unmitigated sever-
ity. Ib.

4. The manifest object of the defendant in this case, (and which he believ-
ed was secured by the contract) was to have the minerals on his farm.
worked as well aa explored, and by the contract he gave full power to
P., the assignor of the plaintiff, to make explorations and to work the

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