26.25. 25. That we should not follow the general Disposition of the civil
Law, in things which ought to be subject to particular Rules drawn from
their own Nature.
Is it a good law that all civil obligations passed
between sailors in a ship in the course of a voyage should be null?
Francis Pirard tells us
[54]
that, in his time, it was not observed by
the Portuguese, though it was by the French. Men who are together only
for a short time, who have no wants, since they are provided for by the
prince; who have only one object in view, that of their voyage; who are
no longer in society, but are only the inhabitants of a ship, ought not
to contract obligations that were never introduced but to support the
burden of civil society.
In the same spirit was the law of the Rhodians, made at a time when
they always followed the coasts; it ordained that those who during a
tempest stayed in a vessel should have ship and cargo, and those who
quitted it should have nothing.
Footnotes
[54]
Chapter 14, part XII.
