The following is a specimen of a marine protest. It is taken from Lawrence v. Minturn, 17 How. 100. It was signed by all the officers and by such of the crew as could write:

At sea, on board ship Hornet of New York, William W. Lawrence, master, bound from New York to San Francisco, California.

We, the undersigned, master, officers and mariners of the ship Hornet, of New York, do, after mature and serious deliberation, enter this solemn protest: That on August 26th, 1851, the ship Hornet being then in or about the longitude of 49° W., latitude 37° N., experiencing a gale of wind from the south, veering to N.W.: and that during said gale, which lasted until the night of the 27th of August, the weight of the deck load, consisting of two boilers, with furnaces attached, and two steam chimneys (the whole supposed to be of the weight of forty tons or thereabouts), did cause the ship to labor very hard, rolling gunwale deep, shipping large bodies of water, straining the ship in her upper works and decks, causing the ship to leak badly, and her pumps constantly worked, placing our lives, ship and cargo in imminent peril for their safety. We now, therefore, do most seriously and solemnly assert, that for the future preservation of the ship, and thereby our lives and cargo, the said boilers, furnaces and chimneys are unsafe on the decks, and for the safety of the whole should be thrown overboard as soon as possible, the weather and sea permitting.

In testimony whereof to the above, we hereby subscribe our respective names.