1. Admiralty — Enforcement of Claims on Mortgages.

Though a court of admiralty has no jurisdiction to entertain independent actions to foreclose mortgages upon vessels, yet, when such court has a fund to dispose of arising from the sale of a vessel, it may entertain claims based on mortgages, pass on their validity and priority, and order them to be satisfied out of the fund, subject to the precedence of all maritime liens and the superior equities of liens and claims other than maritime.

2. Same — Priorities.

O., the owner of a steam tug, liad a running account with the P. Co. for advances and supplies, to secure which, with future advances and credits, he gave his note for $3.000, secured by a mortgage on the tug. Subsequently lie gave a second mortgage on the tug to one B. for advances and supplies. O. made payments from time to time to the P. Co., which called upon him for such payments whenever the amount of his account exceeded the amount of the mortgage security. When the P. Co. first learned of the mortgage to B., O.’s account exceeded the security by $612.74, and the P. Co. afterwards made further advances to the amount of $2,244. The tug having been libeled by another party, and sold, and a surplus remaining in court, claims were presented by the P. Co. and B. Held that, as to the advances made by the P. Co. after it learned of B.’s mortgage, its claim was inferior to the equities in favor of B.

8. Same — Application op Payments.

O. made two payments to the P. Co., after it learned of the mortgage to B., of $2,377.12 and $300 respectively. The Civil Code of California, where the transactions were had, provides that, in case of application of payments by the court, payment shall be made “* * * (3) of the obligation earliest in date of maturity; (4) of an obligation not secured * * *; (5) of an obligation secured * * Held, no application having been made by either party, that, in accordance both with this statute and with general equitable principles, the payments made by O. to the P. Co. should be applied, first, to the. part of his indebtedness remaining unsecured when the P. Co. learned of the mortgage to B., and then to the reduction of the secured debt.