Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/274

 That position, he had by this time discovered, was no bed of roses. His knowledge of the principles of the art of navigation was no doubt a qualification, and no mean one, for the office; but it does not appear that, amongst his numerous studies, he had ever directed any special attention to that of the law. For the ordinary practitioners of the Common Law he had indeed an unconcealed aversion, having had only too much to do with them; nor does it appear that he had ever given any special attention to the Civil Law. The general rules also by which Courts of Admiralty were to be guided, being in the seventeenth century but ill-ascertained, and an appeal being held to lie from the Court of Admiralty in Ireland to the English Admiralty Court, his situation as judge was precarious.

In England itself the jurisdiction was in dispute, for 'in the reign of James 1st the Lord High Admiral of the day had protested against the encroachments of the Courts of Common Law, and claimed among other things for His own Judges a Jurisdiction at least concurrent with that of the Judges of the Land in suits arising out of foreign contracts and contracts executed in England, but wholly or in part to be performed on the High Seas, and in suits instituted for the recovery of Mariners wages. This claim Westminster Hall, which up to the time of Lord Mansfield never failed to evince great jealousy towards the Civil Law and its professors, was not prepared to concede.'

At first there was little or nothing to do. 'The famine in