Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/309

 9. HOLDSWORTH: THE LAW MERCHANT 295 legislature,^ they were jealously watched by the crown and by the court of Admiralty. In 1570 EHzabeth found it necessary to complain of the encroachments made by the mayor's court of the city of London upon the Admiral's jurisdiction.^ We find that at different periods in the 15th and 16th centuries the jurisdiction of Tynemouth, Scarbor- ough, Chester, King's Lynn, Harwich, Dartmouth and Ches- ter are either called in question by, or successfully asserted against, the court of Admiralty.^ All these local Admiralty jurisdictions were swept away in 1835 by the Municipal Corporations Act.^ The only local jurisdiction left is one which is possibly older than them all, the jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports. " It presents the type and original of all our Admiralty and maritime courts." ^ From the earliest times the Cinque Ports had the right to hold pleas, and the right to wreck. They were always exempt from the jurisdiction of the Admiralty. Owing probably to the antiquity of their jurisdiction, this exception is not ex- pressly given in their Charters. When in 1856 the general civil jurisdiction of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was abolished, his Admiralty jurisdiction was saved.*' In 1869, when Admiralty jurisdiction was given to the new county courts, it was provided that appeals in Admiralty cases from the county courts within the jurisdiction of the Lord Warden should lie to him.^ Their jurisdiction is not touched by the Judicature Act of 1873, and still survives.^ The Admiralty jurisdiction, thus exercised by the local courts, was supervised and controlled by the crown. The crown was for many reasons specially interested in Admiralty cases. Foreign affairs were peculiarly within its province. The Courts of Common Law had no adequate machinery for » 2 Henry V. St, 1 c. 6; 32 Henry VIII. c, 14; 5 Eliza, c. 5 § 42; 2? Eliza, c. 11. More, ibid i 83 (1539). » Ibid ii xix-xxi. * 5, 6 Will. IV. c. 76. ' Select Pleas of the Admiralty (S. S.) ii xxi. Cp. Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports v. the King (1831) 2 Hagg., Admir. 438, 443, 444. « 18, 19 Vict. c. 48 § 10. » 31, 32 Vict. c. 71 § 33. "46, 47 Vict. c. 18 §13 (Municipal Corporations Act 1883); 57, 58 Vict. c. 60 § 571 (Merchant Shipping Act 1894). The regular place for the sitting of the court was the isle of St. James's Church, Dover. For convenience the judge now often sits at the Royal Courts of Justice.
 * Select Pleas of the Admiralty (S. S.) ii xii, xiii. Cf. Legge v.