(3) The question of convenience of witnesses was for the District Judge to consider and determine. Id.

33 F. (2d) 280, reversed.

CERTIORARI, 280 U. S. 545, to review a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals which reversed a decree of the District Court declining jurisdiction of a suit in admiralty between foreigners to recover a general average deposit made in a foreign port.

Mr. Cletus Keating for petitioner.

Mr. Theodore L. Bailey for respondent.

MR. JUSTICE STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent, a British corporation, filed in the District Court for Southern New York a libel in personam against petitioner, also a British corporation, to recover a general average deposit made in London. The libel alleged that the petitioner received on its vessel, the "Charterhague," at various Gulf and Atlantic ports in the United States, shipments of rosin and turpentine for transportation to London, bills of lading for which were endorsed to the respondent. As grounds for recovery it was set up that the general average act was due to unseaworthiness of the vessel at the beginning of the voyage, unknown to respondent when it made the deposit in order to releasc the cargo from the general average lien.

On the libel, the general appearance and exceptions of the libelee, the petitioner here, and an answering affidavit setting up that after the libel in the present suit was filed respondent commenced suit in England involving the same subject matter, the District Court dismissed the libel, saying that contribution for general average is to

be determined by law of the port of discharge and that "under all the circumstances" jurisdiction should be declined. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the jurisdiction should have been retained. 33 F. (2d) 280. It pointed out that the suit did not involve a restatement of a general average adjustment and said that if the bills of lading contained a "Jason clause " or incorporated the provisions of the Harter Act, the question of due diligence to make the vessel seaworthy would be an issue in the case, citing The Jason, 225 U. S. 32; The Edwin I. Morrison, 153 U. S. 199; Hurlbut v. Turnure (D. C.) 76 Fed. 587, aff'd 81 Fed. 208; Trinidad Shipping Co. v. Frame, Alston & Co., 88 Fed. 528; that the rule that general average is controlled by the law at the port of destination was consequently an insufficient reason for declining jurisdiction, and, in view of the statement of the affidavit that there were American witnesses as to seaworthiness, concluded that it was expedient under all the circumstances for the court to retain jurisdiction. This Court granted certiorari, 280 U. S. 545.

The retention of jurisdiction of a suit in admiralty between foreigners is within the discretion of the District Court. The exercise of its discretion may not be disturbed unless abused. The Belgenland, 114 U. S. 355, 368; The Maggie Hammond, 9 Wall. 435, 457.

The affidavit states that the bills of lading contain a clause providing for general average, but the bills of lading are not in the record and it does not appear that they embraced Jason or other clauses modifying the liability in general average. As that liability arises not from contract but from participation in the common venture, see Hobson v. Lord, 92 U. S. 397; Barnard v. Adams, 10 How. 270, 303; The Roanoke, 59 Fed. 161, 163; Milburn v. Jamaica Fruit, &c. Co., (1900) 2 Q. B. 540, 550, its extent

in the absence of such limiting clauses is, under the admiralty rule, fixed by the law of the port of destination. Hobson v. Lord, supra, 411; Mousen v. Amsinck, 166 Fed. 817, 820; Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a vapeur v. Bonnase, 15 F. (2d) 202, 203; Congdon, General Average (2d Ed.) 148. Even if so limited, the extent and effect of the limitation cannot be determined apart from consideration of the rule limited.

Both the parties being British subjects and the present litigation, as well as the suit pending abroad, apparently involving the application of English law to the fund located there, it was for the District Court to say, as it did, upon a consideration of all the circumstances, whether it should decline "to take cognizance of the case if justice would be done as well by remitting the parties to the home forum." See The Maggie Hammond, supra, p. 457.

Even if we assume, as did the court below, that the bills of lading may have modified the liability in general average so as to put in issue the care taken to make the vessel seaworthy before sailing, we cannot say that the District Court improvidently exercised its discretion. While some witnesses as to seaworthiness were "American repairmen," it does not appear that any were in or near the southern district of New York. The libel alleges that the Charterhague plied as a common carrier between American ports and London where, so far as appears, her officers and crew would be available as witnesses as to the alleged unseaworthy condition of engines and boilers. It was for the District Judge to consider the facts appearing and the inferences which he might draw from them and reach his own conclusion as to the convenience of witnesses as well as the other factors upon which he decided that justice would be best served by leaving the parties to their suit in England.

Reversed.

Syllabus.

U. S. SHIPPING BOARD MERCHANT FLEET CORPORATION v. HARWOOD, TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY, ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.

No. 345. Argued April 16, 1930.-Decided May 19, 1930.

1. The Fleet Corporation held suable on contracts purporting to bind it, made by it in its own name, as a corporation organized under the laws of the District of Columbia, and describing it as representing and acting for and in behalf of the United States, but containing no words purporting to bind the United States or in terms restricting the liability of the corporation. P. 524.

2. The quasi-public character of the Fleet Corporation, and the duties imposed upon it as an agency of the United States by Acts of Congress and Executive Orders, do not except it from the rule that an agent may be bound, notwithstanding his known agency, by contracts that he executes in his own name. Id.

3. There is no basis for presuming that the Fleet Corporation is not to be deemed bound by the contracts into which it enters, merely because it is acting as a public agency; and its liability as measured by their terms is not to be curtailed by the presumption which might be indulged in favor of an individual acting for the Government. P. 525.

4. Section 2 (b) (2) of the Merchant Marine Act, which provides that all rights or remedies accruing as a result of contracts previously made under the Emergency Shipping Fund legislation "shall be in all respects as valid, and may be exercised and enforced in like manner, subject to the provisions of subdivision (c) of this section, as if this Act had not been passed," saves the right to sue the Fleet Corporation on its contracts. P. 527. 5. Subdivision (c) of § 2 of the Merchant. Marine Act, providing that any person dissatisfied with any decision of the Shipping Board "shall have the same right to sue the United States as he would have had if the decision had been made by the President of the United States under the Acts hereby repealed," if it is applicable to suits on contracts of the Fleet Corporation at most gave an additional remedy against the United States and not a substi

Argument for Petitioner.

281 TJ. S.

tute for existing remedies against the Fleet Corporation expressly preserved by subdivision (b) (2), supra. P. 527.

32 F. (2d) 680, affirmed.

CERTIORARI, 280 U. S. 544, to review a judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals reversing a judgment of the District Court in a suit, brought originally in a state court, against the Fleet Corporation to cancel a contract, for duress and fraud, and to secure an accounting under earlier contracts. The District Court dismissed the bill upon the ground that the only remedy was against the United States, 26 F. (2d) 116. The Court of Appeals held otherwise, but limited the relief to an accounting under the contract sought to be canceled.

Mr. Claude R. Branch, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, with whom Attorney General Mitchell and Messrs. J. Frank Staley, Erwin N. Griswold, Chauncey G. Parker, General Counsel, Fleet Corporation, and O. P. M. Brown, Special Counsel, Fleet Corporation, were on the brief, for petitioner.

In executing the contract of March 26, 1920, the Fleet Corporation was acting as the agent of a disclosed sovereign principal. Besides disclosing in the description of the parties that it was acting solely in a representative capacity and solely on behalf of its principal, much of the subject matter of the contract relates to matters, such as the cancellation of contracts and the payments of just compensation therefor, with which the Fleet Corporation, under its corporate charter powers, had no concern. Moreover, the authority under which this public agent was acting existed by reason of Acts of Congress and Executive Orders, of which everyone was chargeable with notice.

When a public officer or agent acts in the line of his duty and by legal authority, his contracts, made on ac