The British Act of 7th and 8th Victoria contains another defect. It limits the wages to "every surviving seaman." I can see no good reason why the wife and children of the sailor who has perished in the forlorn hope perhaps, in the cause of all, should be deprived of the humble wages so dearly earned by their natural protector, and thus be compelled to feel a new deprivation added to their bereavement. In the proposed bill there is no such limitation. Beyond this brief statement, I need not on this occasion add another word. Already Congress has shown a disposition to modify the rigorous Maritime Law in some of its provisions. In 1851 it made a change in the liability of ship-owners as common carriers. But this very liability originated, to a certain extent, in the same principles from which is derived the liability of the seamen, if they fail to bring the ship and cargo to port. Ship-owners and sailors were both treated as insurers. This was in the age of force, before the contract of insurance had spread its broad protection over commerce in every sea. The seaman should share this protection. He should be treated as not necessarily either pirate or coward. In the discussions of the Senate on the proposed change in the liability of ship-owners, it was effectively urged by my immediate predecessor, a distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, the late Robert Rantoul, Jr., that, if the United States failed to adopt that measure, the other maritime nations would have an advantage in the carrying trade. It is equally true, that, unless we adopt the measure now proposed, Great Britain will have the advantage of us in the rate of seamen's wages; for, under her existing laws, the seaman can afford to work cheaper on board a British ship than under the American flag. The measure now proposed is of direct importance to the hundred and fifty thousand seamen constituting the mercantile marine of the United States. It also concerns the million of men constituting the mercantile marine of the civilized world, any of whom, in the vicissitudes of the sea, may find themselves in American bottoms. I commend it as a measure of enlightened philanthropy, and also of simple justice. I ask that the bill, having been read twice, be referred to the Committee on Commerce. The motion was agreed to. AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. LETTER TO A COMMITTEE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, FEBRUARY 12, 1855. SENATE CHAMBER, February 12, 1855.