Shipment in foreign ports before consuls.
Every master of a merchant-vessel who engages any seaman at a place out of the United States, in which there is a consular officer or commercial agent, shall, before carrying such seaman to sea, procure the sanction of such officer, and shall engage seamen in his presence; and the rules governing the engagement of seamen before a shipping-commissioner in the United States, shall apply to such engagements made before a consular officer or commercial agent; and upon every such engagement the consular officer or commercial agent shall indorse upon the agreement his sanction thereof, and an attestation to the effect that the same has been signed in his presence, and otherwise duly made. (R. S., 4517.)
Every master who engages any seaman in any place in which there is a consular officer or commercial agent, otherwise than as required by the preceding section, shall incur a penalty of not more than one hundred dollars, for which penalty the vessel shall be held liable.
Every master of a vessel in the foreign trade may engage any seaman at any port out of the United States, in the manner provided by law, to serve for one or more round trips from and to the port of departure, or for a definite time, whatever the destination; and the master of a vessel clearing from a port of the United States with one or more seamen engaged in a foreign port as herein provided shall not be required to reship in a port of the United States the seamen so engaged. (R. S., 4518; June 26, 1884; sec. 20; Mar. 3, 1897; sec. 3.)