CHAP. XXV.: 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 Chap. xiv. p. 12. ^†472 tells us, 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 burthen 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 staid in a vessel, should have ship and cargo, and those who quitted it should have nothing.