§ MR. PLIMSOLLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whther he is aware that a part of the crew of the "Ogmore" (which was detained at Weymouth on Thursday by the Board of Trade on the ground that she was unseaworthy) were sent to Dorchester Jail for refusing to proceed to sea in that vessel; whether, seeing that Mr. Turner, the principal shipwright surveyor of the Board of Trade, has declared the "Ogmore" to be unsafe, he will direct or has directed the release of those seamen; and, whether it is in his power to grant the seamen so imprisoned any compensation for the injustice they have suffered?
§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYIt is true that part of the crew of the Ogmore were committed by the magistrates of Weymouth to jail for refusing to go to sea. The Secretary of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade having reason to doubt the seaworthiness of the ship, sent the principal shipwright surveyor, Mr. Turner, to make a further survey, and he detained the ship in the act of going to sea with another crew on finding her masts unseaworthy. Upon this the Board of Trade immediately applied to the Home Secretary to release the men from jail, and they were released. The hon. Member for Derby sent a memorial to the Board requesting that this might be done, which arrived the day after, confirming the justice of the course which had been pursued. With regard to compensation, I need only say that the seamen so imprisoned have a remedy against the owner or master under the 9th section of the 85th chapter of 36 and 37 Vic., under which provision the owner of the Goldfinder of Greenock was lately very severely mulcted.