Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/51

 service on which suit is brought should be connected with commerce and navigation. The jurisdiction of those Courts in America extends to personal suits, and includes claims founded in contract and in wrong, and also those cases where claims, founded in a hypothecary interest of the nature of a lien, are urged and adjudicated upon. Their jurisdiction extends, moreover, to those cases in which shares of fish, taken on the Bank and other Cod-fisheries, and of oil in the Whale-fishery, are claimed; and, as in English Courts, the seaman may unite his claims, though founded on distinct contracts, in one suit, but this only when demanding wages. The Courts of Common Law in the United States also take cognizance of mariners' contracts, but they are not competent to give a remedy so as to enforce the mariner's lien on the vessel; hence, they confine their jurisdiction to personal suits against the master or owner, in accordance with the contract made with the seaman; but, in cases of tort committed on the high seas, and where the form of action is trespass, or a special action, the common law has concurrent jurisdiction.

The laws of the United States expressly provide that the crews of merchant vessels shall have the fullest liberty to lay their complaints before their consuls abroad, and shall in no respect be restrained therein by any master or officer, unless some sufficient and valid objection exist against their landing, in which case it is the duty of the master to apprize the consul forthwith, stating the reason why the