Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/326

 312 //. FROM THE 1100' S TO THE 1800' S The three or four substantial persons to be appointed under the act of Henry VIII. came to be invariably the judges of the Common Law Courts. The indirect result of the act was, therefore, to transfer the criminal jurisdiction of the Admi- ralty to the Courts of Common Law.^ Special commissions under this act have been rendered obsolete by later legislation. In 1834 the Central Criminal Court Act gave to that court the jurisdiction of these special commissioners.^ In 184)4 a similar jurisdiction was given to the ordinary justices of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery.' Provisions to the same effect are contained in the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts* and the Merchant Shipping Acts.* The criminal jurisdiction of the Admiralty has thus for three centuries been exercised by the Courts of Common Law. It has, for this reason, almost wholly lost the international character which marked all branches of the maritime law in the Middle Ages. Piracy " at common law " is perhaps the only crime, which still retains some trace of an international character, in the rule, that it can be tried by the court of any country wherever and by whomsoever committed. The crim- inal jurisdiction of the Admiralty, having been administered by the ordinary courts, has become part and parcel of the common law, to be spelt out of English statutes, to be changed only as that law is changed. This fact was strikingly illus- trated by Reg. v. Keyn.^ No consensus of international jur- ists was held sufficient to give to the English courts a crim- inal jurisdiction over foreigners not recognised by English law. Cockburn, C. J., denied that a consensus of jurists could effect, in maritime law, what, in another branch of the old law merchant, he allowed might be effected by a consensus of merchants.^ The case was decided by a bare majority. We may, perhaps, conjecture that it would have been decided the other way, if the criminal jurisdiction of the Admiralty » Stephen, H. C. L. ii 19. • 4, 5 Will. IV. c. 36 § 22. » 7, 8 Vict. 0. 2. ♦24, 25, Vict. c. 96 § 115; c. 97 § 72; c. 98 § 50; c. 99 § 36; c. 100 § 68. seamen. 17,18 Vict. c. 104 § 267; 18, 19 Vict. c. 91 § 21; 57, 58 Vict. c. 60 § 686, 687. • n877) L. R. 2 Ex Div. 63, 202. 'Goodwin v. Robarts (1875) L. R. 10 Ex. 337; below.
 * They de^l with crimes committed on British ships or by British