Definition
A term from French maritime law describing a conditional arrangement within a contract of affreightment, by which a shipper's cargo is accepted for loading on the condition that the ship's master is able to complete the full cargo from other sources. In practical terms, the carrier takes on a partial shipment provisionally, with the understanding that the voyage will only proceed—or the contract will only be fully operative—if the vessel's remaining cargo space is filled by other shippers. If the master cannot complete the cargo, the shipper's goods may be returned or the arrangement may be dissolved.
The term is French in origin and was used primarily in civil-law and French commercial jurisdictions. It appears in English-language legal dictionaries as a term of art borrowed from French mercantile practice, reflecting the heavy French influence on early maritime commercial law.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow, historically bounded term encountered almost exclusively in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century maritime law materials. Researchers are unlikely to find it in modern American or English case law under this name; contemporary shipping contracts address the same concept through express cargo completion clauses or laycan and cargo assembly provisions without using the French terminology.
The term's primary research value lies in interpreting older charter party documents, French commercial law texts, and treatises on affreightment from the civil-law tradition. If a historical document uses this phrase, the researcher needs to understand it as a contingency condition running to the benefit of the carrier or the master—not a firm, unconditional commitment to transport.
The cited source in both editions of Black's—"Arg. Fr. Merc. Law"—refers to J.J. Argou's work on French mercantile law, a civil-law treatise. Researchers tracing this term into primary sources will need access to French commercial law materials from that period, not common-law reporters.
Be alert to the fact that the term does not appear in most English-language maritime law dictionaries outside of Black's. Its absence from Bouvier's and other contemporaneous American legal dictionaries suggests it was recognized as a term of foreign law rather than a naturalized term of English or American maritime practice.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary provide nearly identical definitions, differing only in a typographic variation ("French iaw" in the second edition, a printing artifact) and a minor difference in the page citation to Argou (543 vs. 548). Neither edition elaborates beyond the single-sentence functional description, and neither attempts to explain how the condition would be enforced or what remedies attached if the master failed to complete the cargo.
The historical dictionaries treat this as a term of pure French law reported for reference rather than as a term integrated into Anglo-American legal practice. This is a meaningful signal: the entry exists to help common-law practitioners and researchers understand documents or authorities from the French commercial tradition, not to state a rule of English or American law.
No evolution in meaning is discernible across the two editions because the entry was not substantively revised. The term appears to have been carried forward verbatim.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Affreightment; Charter Party; Maritime Contracts
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