Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/635

 IN RE LONG ISlaNB, ETC., TRÀ'NSi'OBTATlON CO. 623 �council of January 9, 1863, and iû oilr aot of congress of 18tJ4, accepted as obligatory rules by moi'e than 30 of the principal commercial statesof the world, including almost ail which bave any shipping on the Atlantic ocean, we are con- strained to regard them as in part, at least, and so far as relates to tbese vessels, the laws; of the sea, and as having been the law at the time when the collision of which the libel- lants complain took place. This is not giving to the statiites of any nation extraterritorial effect. It is not treating them as general maritime laws, but it is a recognition of the his- torical fact that by common consent of mankind these rules have been aoquiesced in as of general obligation. Of that faet •we think we may take judicial notice." By what principle are vessels plying between ports of the same state on strictly domestic state commerce held bound by the steering rules and the rules as to lights laid down in the aot ôf congress, as they constantly are in collision cases in this court without ques- tion ? The reason 'is furnished by the decision of the court in the case of The Scotia, that these rules have beeome the law of the sea ; and their adoption by congress, at any rate so far as its power to regulate commerce extends, is the mOst satis- f actory proof that they bave beeome part of the maritime law of the United States as well as that of other commercial na- tions, and it is not iaecessary to suggest in defence of the application of these rules to such domestio vessels, as was done in the case of The Bright Star, 1 Woolw. 270, that th© protection of the inter- state and foreign commerce traversing the same waters gives congress the inoidemtal power to impose them as rules of statutory obligation on these strietly domes- tic ships. See,also, The Eleonora, 17 Blatchf. 88. I Btm,th6re- fore, of opinion that, in any view of the statute and of ths ppwers of congress to which it is to be attributed, the rule of limitation of liability on the surrender of the vessel • and freight is part of the maritime law of the Uiiited States, and the rule of liability to be administered in this court; and therefore the exceptions to the jarisdiction of the couft are overruled, and the motions to dismiss the original libel and set aside the monitionmust bft flenitid ' ����