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ADMIRALTY,

H I G H

court by Edward III. in the year 1360 ; the power of the admiral to determine matters of discipline in the fleet, and possibly questions of piracy and prize, being somewhat earlier. Even then the court as such took no formal shape; but the various admirals began to receive in their patents express grants of jurisdiction with powers to appoint lieutenants or deputies. At first there were separate admirals or rear-admirals of the north, south, and west, each with deputies and courts. A list of them was collected by Sir H. Spelman. These were merged in or absorbed by one high court early in the 15 th century. Sir Thomas Beaufort, afterwards earl of Dorset and duke of Exeter (appointed admiral of the fleet, 9 Henry IV., and admiral of England, Ireland, and Aquitaine 1412, which latter office he held till his death in 1417), 'certainly had a court, with a marshal and other officers, and forms of legal process—mandates, warrants, citations, compulsories, proxies, &c. For the subject matters of the ancient Admiralty jurisdiction it is usual to refer to the inquisition of Queenborough in 1375. Complaints of encroachment of jurisdiction by the Admiralty courts led to the restraining Acts, 13 Hie. II. c. 5, 15 Hie. II. c. 3, and 2 Hen. IV. c. 11. The original object of the institution of the courts or court seems to have been to prevent or punish piracy and other crimes upon the narrow seas and to deal with questions of prize; but civil jurisdiction soon followed. The jurisdiction in criminal matters was transdictioa ferred by 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15 to the admiral or his deputy and three or four other substantial persons appointed by the Lord Chancellor, who were to proceed according to the course of the common law. By 4 and 5 Will. IV. c. 36, cognizance of crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty was given to the central criminal court. By 7 and 8 Viet. c. 2, it has been also given to the justices of assize; and crimes done within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty are now tried as crimes committed within the body of a county. See also the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 24 and 25 Victoria. From the time of Henry IV. the only legislation affecting the civil jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty till the time of Queen Victoria is to be found in § 10 of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 14, enabling the admiral or his lieutenant to decide on certain complaints of freighters against shipmasters for delay in sailing, and § 34 of 5 Eliz. c. 5, giving the Lord High Admiral of England, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, their lieutenants and judges, co-ordinate power with other judges to enforce forfeitures under that Act—a very curious and miscellaneous statute called “ An Act for the Maintenance of the Navy.” In the Act 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, with regard to ecclesiastical appeals from the courts of the archbishops to the Crown, it is provided that the appeal shall be to the king in Chancery, “and that upon every such appeal a commission shall be directed under the great seal to such persons as shall be named by the king’s highness, his heirs or successors, like as in cases of appeal from the Admiralty Court.” The appeal to these “persons,” called delegates, continued until it was transferred first to the Privy Council and then to the judicial committee of the Privy Council by the statutes 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 92, and 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 41. The early jurisdiction of the court appears to have been exercised very much under the same procedure as that used by the Courts of Common Law. Juries are mentioned, sometimes of the county and sometimes of the county and merchants. But the connexion with foreign parts led to the gradual introduction of a procedure resembling that coming into use on the Continent and based on the Roman civil law. The statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15, states the objection to this

COURT

OF

application of the civil law to the trial of criminal cases with much force: “ After the course of the civil laws, the nature whereof is that before any judgment of death can be given against the offenders, either they must plainly confess their offences (which they will never do without torture or pain), or else their offences be so plainly and directly proved by witness indifferent such as saw their offences committed, which cannot be gotten but by chance at few times.” The material enactments of the restraining statutes were as follows:—13 Ric. II. c. 5 provided that “the admirals and their deputies shall not meddle from henceforth of anything done within the Acts' realm, but only of a thing done upon the sea, as it hath been used in the time of the noble prince king Edward, grandfather of our lord the king that now is.” 15 Ric. II. c. 3 provided, that “of all manner of contracts, pleas, and quarrels, and other things rising within the bodies of the counties as well by land as by water, and also of wreck of the sea, the admiral’s court shall have no manner of cognizance, power, nor jurisdiction; but all such manner of contracts, pleas, and quarrels, and all other things rising within the bodies of counties, as well by land as by water, as afore, and also wreck of the sea, shall be tried, determined, discussed, and remedied by the laws of the land, and not before nor by the admiral, nor his lieutenant in any wise. Nevertheless, of the death of a man, and of a maihem done in great ships, being and hovering in the main stream of great rivers, only beneath the [bridges] of the same rivers [nigh] to the sea, and in none other places of the same rivers, the admiral shall have cognizance, and also to arrest ships in the great flotes for the great voyages of the king and of the realm ; saving always to the king all manner of forfeitures and profits thereof coming; and he shall have also jurisdiction upon the said flotes, during the said voyages only; saving always to the lords, cities, and boroughs, their liberties and franchises.” 2 Hen. IV. c. 11 adds nothing by way of definition or restriction, but merely gives additional remedies against encroachments, providing heavy fines for those who improperly sue in the court, and those officials of the court who improperly assert jurisdiction. It was repealed by 24 Viet. c. 10. The statutes of Richard, except the enabling part of the second, were repealed by 42 and 43 Viet. c. 59. The formation of a High Court of Justice rendered them obsolete. In the reign of James I. the chronic. controversies between the Courts of Common Law and the Admiralty Court as to the limits of their respective jurisdictions reached an acute stage. We find the records of it in the second volume of Mr Marsden’s Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, and in Lord Coke’s writings : Reports, part xiii. 51; Institutes, part iv. chap. 22. In this latter passage Lord Coke records how, notwithstanding an agreement asserted to have been made in 1575 between the justices of the King’s Bench and the judge of the Admiralty, the judges of the Common Law Courts successfully maintained their right to prohibit suits in Admiralty upon contracts made on shore, or within havens, or creeks, or tidal rivers, if the waters were within the body of any county, wheresoever such contracts were broken, for torts committed within the body of a county, whether on land or water, and for contracts made in parts beyond the seas. It is due to the memory of the judges of Lord Coke’s time to say that, at any rate as regards contracts made in partibus transmarinis, the same rule appears to have been applied at least as early as 36 Hen. VIII., the judges then holding that “ for actions transitory abroad action may lie at common law.” All the while, however, the patents of the Admiralty