Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/174

Rh 158 A D M A D M to subordinate the members of the board of admiralty more effectually to the first lord, constituting him in effect minister of marine; and to render departmental officers at once more individually responsible and more intimate with the controlling members of the board. He increased the power and functions of the controller of the navy, giving him a seat at the board, and charging him with the stock-keeping attributes of the storekeeper-gene ral, whose purchasing functions were transferred to a new officer the superintendent of contracts, the head of the contract and purchase department, and his accounting functions to the accountant-general. The office of store keeper-general was abolished. The office of comptroller of victualling was also abolished the storekeeping func tions being transferred to a new officer, the superin tendent of victualling the purchasing function to the head of the purchase department, the accounts to the accountant-general. The other officers remained; but in the case of each this modification of business ensued, viz., that all stores whatever required by any of them were to be obtained through the agency of one supply or purchase department; that all accounts whatever were to be rendered to the accountant-general. The departmental officers of the admiralty at the present time (1874) are the controller of the navy, without a seat at the board (who has on his staff a chief naval architect, a chief engineer, a surveyor of dockyards, a superintendent of naval stores, and a director of ordnance) the director- general of the medical department, the director of works, the director of transports, the hydrographer, the superintendent of contracts, the superintendent of victualling. The department of the two permanent secre taries of the admiralty (one a naval officer, the other a civilian) undertakes the conduct of all business relating to the personnel of the navy and the ordering of the fleets. To control the departmental officers, and to advise the responsible first lord, there are the following members of the board of admiralty, viz., the parliamentary or finan cial secretary, who has oversight of all business relating to finance, estimates, expenditure, and accounts, and who is the alter ego of the first lord in Parliament; the first naval lord, who, assisted by two other naval &quot;lords,&quot; takes oversight of the personnel and of all executive func tions of the fleet; and a civilian lord, who assists the financial secretary, and has particular oversight also of naval civil establishments and of the works department. A list of secretaries of the admiralty from 1684 to the present time is given below: FIRST SECRETARIES TO THE ADMIRALTY. From Tc Samuel Pepys, Esq.,. . Phineas Bowles, Esq.,. . . James Sotherne, Esq.,. . . Josiah Barchett, Esq.,. . . Thomas Corbet, Esq.,. . . John Cleveland, Esq.,. . . Philip Stevens, Esq. (then one of the Board), Evan Nepean, Esq., .... William Marsden, Esq., Hon. W. W. Pole, .... John Wilson Croker, Esq., Captain the Hon. George Elliott Right Hon. George R. Dawson, Charles Wood, Esq., M.P.,. R. More O Ferrall, Esq.,. . John Parker, Esq., M.P.,. . Hon. Sidney Herbert,. . . Right Hon. H. T. L. Cony, M.P Henry G. Ward, Esq., M.P.,. John Parker, Esq., M.P.,. . Augustus Stafford, Esq., Bernal Osborne, Esq., M.P., , Right Hon. H. T. L. Cony, M.P. From May 1684 March 1689 Dec. 25, 1689 Sept. 25, 1694 Oct. 10, 1741 To Feb. 1689. Dec. 1689. Sept. 24, 1694. Oct. 10, 1741. June 18, 1763 March 3, 1795. 21, 1804. 24, 1807. 8, 1809. 29, 1830. 24, 1834. 27, 1835. 4, 1839. 9, 1841. 10, 1841. 1845. 13, 1846. 1, 1849. . 3, 1852. 6, 1853. i 8, 1858. 80, 1859. March 8, 1795 Jan. Jan. 21, 1804 June June 24 1807 Oct. Oct. 9, 1809 Nov. 29, 1830 Dec. Dec. 24, 1834 April April 27, 1835 Oct. Oct. 4, 1839 June June 9, 1841 Sept. Sept. H 1841 Feb. ., Feb. 1845 July July 13, 1846 May May 21, 1849 Marcl March 3, 1852 Jan. Jan. 6, 1853 Marc; ., March 0. 1858 June &quot; 30, 1866 July 15, 1866. 16, 1866 Dec. 17, 1868. 18, 1868 March 16, 1871. Rear-Admiral Lord C. G. Paget, C.B., M.P Hon. Thomas G. Baring, M.P., April 30, 1866 July Lord Henry G. Lennox, M. P., July W. E. Baxter, Esq., M.P.,. Dec. Geo. J. Shaw Lefevre, Esq., M.P., March 17, 1871 As regards the navies of foreign countries, their govern ment is in the hands of ministers or departments variously constituted. The Russian Admiralty is a highly-organised bureau, divided into departments after the English manner, and under the supreme control of a high admiral, usually a Grand Duke of the Imperial House. The German Admiralty was, till 1872, a branch of the War Office, though governed by a vice-admiral under a naval prince of the reigning family. In 1872 it was severed from the War Office, though remaining an appanage thereof, and a general of the army was placed at its head. The French minister of marine, assisted by a permanent staff, controls the navy of France on a highly centralised system of administration; but the departments are well organised, and work well. The Italian fleet is governed on principles analogous to the French, but with a large admixture of the English representative element. The American navy is governed by a secretary of the navy, a cabinet minister, to whom the departmental heads are responsible, and under whose orders they work. (F. w. R.) ADMIRALTY, HIGH COURT OF. This is a court of law, in which the authority of the lord high admiral is exercised in his judicial capacity. Very little has been left on record of the ancient prerogative of the admirals of England. For some time after the first institution of the office they judged all matters relating to merchants and mariners, which happened on the main sea, in a summary way, according to the laws of Oleron (so called because pro mulgated by Richard I. at that place). These laws, which were little more than a transcript of the Rhodian laws, became the universally-received customs of the western part of the world. &quot; All the seafaring nations,&quot; says Sir Leoline Jenkins, &quot; soon after their promulgation, received and entertained these laws from the English, by way of deference to the sovereignty of our kings in the British ocean, and to the judgment of our countrymen in sea affairs.&quot; In the patents granted to the early admirals between the latter years of the reign of Henry III. and the close of that of Edward III., no mention is made of marine perquisites or of civil power, nor does it appear that the admirals enjoyed either ; but after the death of the latter, new and extraordinary powers were granted to them, and it would appear that they usurped others. The preamble to the 13 Richard II. stat. 1, c. 5, sets forth that &quot;a great and common clamour and complaint hath been oftentimes made before this time, and yet is, for that the admirals and their deputies hold their sessions within divers places of this realm, as well within the franchise as without, accroaching to them greater authority than belongeth to their office, in prejudice of our lord the king and the common law of the realm, and in diminishing of divers franchises, and in destruction and impoverishing of the common people;&quot; and the statute therefore directs that the admirals and their deputies shall not meddle from henceforth of any thing done within the realm, but only of a thing done upon the sea. Two years afterwards (15 Rich. II. c. 3), in consequence, as stated in the preamble of the statute, &quot;of the great ami grievous complaint of all the commons,&quot; it was ordained that the admiral s court should have no cognisance of any contracts, pleas, or quarrels, or of any thing done or arising within the bodies of counties, whether by land or by water, nor of wreck of the sea ; but that the admiral should have cognisance of the death of a man, and of mayhem done in great ships being and hovering in the main stream of great rivers, yet only beneath the bridges of the same rivers nigh to the sea. He may also 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 coining, and have jurisdic tion over the said flotes, but during the said voyages only. But if the admiral or his lieutenant exceed that jurisdiction, then, by 2 Henry IV. c, 11, the statute and the common law may be holden against them ; and if a man pursues wrongfully in the admiralty court, his adversary may recover double damages at common law,
 * , Nov.
 * June 30, 1859 April 20, 186C.