Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/469

 462 FEDERAL REPORTBS. �except so far as by the statute of the Unîted States the juris- diction is reserved to the state courts. That statuts contains the proviso "saving to suitors in ail cases the right of a com- mon-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it. " 1 U. S. St. 77, § 9 ; Vose v. Cockcroft, 44 N. Y. 415-425. �The question, then, is whether the remedy given by the state court, under the act of 1869, is a common-law rem- edy, -which the common law, as understood in the act of congress, was competent to give. I think it entirely clear that the remedy was not a common law remedy, nor one which the common law, so understood, was competent to give. It is too clear for argument that the action is not a common-law action, either in its form or effect, or in the nature of the judgment. It is more in the nature, both in its form and in the character of the remedy given, of a bill in equity to foreclose a mortgage. The reservation of the aci of congress relates to weU-known forms of action and reme- dies, distinguished alike from those prosecuted in rem in courts of admiralty, and from those that are peculiar to courts of equity. Equitable remedies, and those which it was com- petent for equity to give, are not saved where the suit ia brought for the enforcement of a maritime contract. It is no answer to say that the proceeding is not strictly in rem because it affects only the right or title of certain defendants against whom the suit is brought. That which is saved to the Buitor is not ail forms of action, and ail remedies other than actions and remedies strictly in rem, but only common- law remedies. It is no answer to say that the lien sought to be enforced is not a maritime lien, but strictly a common-law lien. That does not make the new remedy given by this statute a common-law remedy. No lien created by a state law, whether it be by the unwritten and traditional law, which coUectively we caU the common law, or by express statute, ia a maritime lien. Maritime liens are created and exist only by force of the maritime law. The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624-644. �Thus the lien given by state statute to a material man ftgainst a vessel is not a maritime lien. Yet a court of ����