Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/489

 U. ROBINSON: ANTICIPATIONS 475 by ambition to stretch their powers. During twenty years the Republicans settled and restrained their civil jurisdiction by statutes : ^ and, when these were set aside at the Restora- tion a bill embodying them was brought into Parliament and supported by Sir Leoline Jenkins.^ St. 1649, c. 61, vested in the Common Law Courts (and presumably took from others) jurisdiction over crimes committed on or beyond the seas: St. 1650, c. 7, however, explained that the Court of Admiralty had such jurisdiction still. Letters of marque were granted though under restrictions.^ Stress of war and ignorance of Political Economy made the Common- wealth pass Acts of Navigation and maintain the pressgang.* But impressment was balanced by high wages, short peri- ods of service, provision made for disabled seamen and for seamen's families. Stt. 1650, c. 28, and 1651, c. 22, per- petuated with aggravations in 1661 and 1663, approved by Blackstone, approved by even Adam Smith and Brougham,^ were not repealed till 1854. District courts to try small causes were in demand: not only such as have been erected since 1846, but more like those which Smith, J., and the Solicitor-General have lately recommended.^ The sheriff's county court, the hundred court, the freeholder's court baron, had become inadequate, and were too often obliged, by writs of pone accedas, recordari and false judgment, to send cases up to the Superior Courts, there to be slowly and expensively decided. In Bacon's time the subjects of England did already fetch justice somewhat far off, more than in any other nation that he knew, the largeness of the kingdom considered ; nor did the circuits nor the Courts of the Councils of Wales and of the North, which he compared to the French Parliaments, and to 22, 23, 38; 1650, cc. 7, 33, 48, 50; 1651, cc. 3, 4; 1654, cc. 21; 1656, c. 10. pp. 13, 14: Browne, " Civil Law," vol. 2, c. 1. »Statt. 1649, cc. 21, 38; 1650, c. 7. cc. 12, 15; 1649, cc. 21, 73; 1650, c. 7; 1651, cc. 21, 29; 1652, cc. 15, 36; 1653, ord. 21; 1654, c. 13; 1656, c. 24. •Bla. 1 "Comm." 418: Adam Smith, " W. of N." bk. 4, c. 2, and Mc- Culloch's 12th n.: Campbell, "Brougham," c. 8. •1st. Rep. of the Judicature Commission (1869), note.
 * See among other Stt. 1648, c. 112; 1648-9, cc. 13, 14; 1640, cc. 21,
 * Williams and Bruce, " Admiralty Jurisdiction and Practice," intr.
 * Stt. 16 Car. 1. c. 5; 17 Car. i. cc. 30, 32; 1647, cc. 78, 101; 1648-9,