Page:United States Reports, Volume 1.djvu/109

98 

1784.

Firʃt. Whether the Court of Admiralty for this State had jurifdiction ?

Second. Whether this Court has jurifdiction!

The firft has been fub-divided into thefe ʃecondary queftions:

Firʃt. Could the Court of Admiralty for this State take cognizance as an Inʃtance Court, fupporting this caufe not to be caufe of Prize ?

Second. Did that Court take cognizance as a Prize Court ?

It is acknowledged by the Council for the Appellants, that if this is not a caufe of Prize, the Court of Admiralty might take cognizance as an Inʃtance Court, it being now fettled that damages may be affeffed in the Admiralty—if it was not for an objection arifing from the Act of Affembly for regulating and eftablifhing Admiralty jurifdiction in this State. By that Act the Judge of Admiralty fhall ‘‘ have cognizance of all controverfies, fuits, and pleas of maritime jurifdiction, not congnizable of the common law, and thereupon fhall decree as the maritime law, the law of nations, and the laws of the Commonwealth fhall require.’’  The objection made, is, that the prefent contoverfy is cognizable of common law.

It is manifeft from this Act, that in framing it, the legiflature took into confideration the Engliʃh ftatutes relating to things done upon the High feas, and particularly the ftatutes of the 13th of Richard the ʃecond, ch. 3, and 5, and the 2d of Henry the fourth, ch. 11. by which, ‘‘ Admirals and their deputies are prohibited from medling with any thing done within the realm of England, but only with things upon the feas, according to that which hath been duly ufed in the time of Edward the third,  ’’ and it is ‘‘ declared, that the Court of the Admiral hath no manner of conufance, power, or jurifdiction of any contract, plea or quarrel, or of any other thing done or rifing within the bodies of counties except in cafes of death or Mayheme  done in great fhips being in the main ftream of rivers beneath the  ponits of the fame. ’’

It is clear even from thefe cautions againft encroachments of the Admiralty upon the Courts of common law, and from the well-known difpute mentioned in Cooke's 4th Inʃt. that the jurifdiction of that court, as to ‘‘ things done upon the fea, ’’ is acknowledged to be proper :  and, that as to them the jurifdiction of the common law courts was not-proper,  but only acquired by a Fiction in fuppofing them to have been done in the fame country, when they were not. ''4 Inʃt. 134 to 143. 3 Blackʃt. 43. 106, &c. Forteʃcue'' de Laudibus 67. et in motis. The common law courts had a great advantage. They ufed it. There was no fuperior Court to prohibit them. They went beyond the ‘‘ Creds quiet impoʃʃible: ’’ for they upon certain fuggeftions, without ‘‘ believing them, but knowing them to both ƒalʃe  and impoʃʃible, affumed jurifdiction ; and would not Z in his ‘‘Jurifdiction of the Admiralty,’’ p.85 urges againft this the ftatute of the 15th of Richard the 2d. is to fay the