Courts of admiralty usually consider the following circumstances as the main ingredients in determining the amount of the reward to be decreed for a salvage service:
(1.) The labor expended by the salvors in rendering the salvage service.
(2.) The promptitude, skill, and energy displayed in rendering the service and saving the property.
(3.) The value of the property employed by the salvors in rendering the service, and the danger to which such property was exposed.
(4.) The risk incurred by the salvors in securing the property from the impending peril.
(5.) The value of the property saved.
(6.) The degree of danger from which the property was rescued.
Compensation as salvage is not viewed by the admiralty courts merely as pay, on the principle of a quantum meruit, or as a remuneration PRO OPERE ET LABORE, but as a reward given for perilous services, voluntarily rendered, and as an inducement to seamen and others to embark in such undertakings to save life and property.
Public policy encourages the hardy and adventurous mariner to engage in these laborious and sometimes dangerous enterprises, and with a view to withdraw from him every temptation to embezzlement and dishonesty, the law allows him, in case he is successful, a liberal compensation.
The Blackwall 77 U.S. 1, 13-14 (U.S.1869) (footnote citation omitted)
