Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/260

 246 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S tion." ..." It would be difficult to maintain that there is any general in the sense of universal law, binding at sea, any more than upon land, nations which either have not assented or have withdrawn their assent thereto "... and further on he speaks of " the general maritime law as administered in England, or (to avoid periphrasis) the law of England." ^ This series of cases came before the Court of Appeal in 1882, in a case ^ which Sir R. Phillimore had decided by " the general maritime law as administered in England ; " ^ and in reversing his decision Brett, L. J. said : * " what is the law which is administered in an English Court of Admiralty, whether English law, or that which is called the Common maritime law, which is not the law of England alone, but the law of all maritime countries. . . . The law which is admin- istered in the English Court of Admiralty is the English maritime law. It is not the ordinary municipal law of the country, but it is the law which the English Court of Ad- miralty, either by Act of Parliament, or by reiterated deci- sions and traditions and principles, has adopted as the Eng- lish maritime law." It is not inconsistent with these decisions that the Law Merchant is recognized whenever a special jury " finds " a custom of merchants, which is acted on by the Courts ; for the law of England recognizes such customs because they comply with rules it has previously laid down, and decides that they were law as complying with its rules, and not from any merit of the Law Merchant. But in this way the usages of merchants still influence the law of England. . . • 6. Conclusion This inadequate sketch of the influence of the Roman Law on the Law of England has now reached its close. We have seen that English law in its earliest stages is almost entirely Teutonic, and that those who claim for it descent from the laws and customs of the Roman occupation are unable to support their case by any satisfactory evidence. The most plausible of these theories is that which refers manorial insti- »L. B. 1 Q. B. p. 125. • Oaetano e. Maria. L. B. 7 P. D. 1, 13T. •Ibid. p. 4. */6td. p. 143.