mission to the lord high admiral of England.

There has been in Ireland, from time immemorial, an instance court of admiralty. It is mentioned, and the mention is worthy of note, more than once in the letters of sir Leoline Jenkins, and a new method of appeal from it at that time proposed, was probably by him prevented, and certainly justly condemned. This court was put upon a new footing in the year 1782, by an act which is given in the appendix. Of late years no prize commission has been given to the judge of the admiralty in Ireland, though he appears constantly to have possessed such an authority, while it was a vice-admiralty court, i. e. till the year 1782.

By the articles of union between England and Ireland, it is provided in the eighth article, that there shall remain in Ireland an instance court of admiralty for the determination of causes civil and maritime only; and that the appeal from sentences of the said court shall be to his majesty's delegates in his court of chancery, in that part of the united kingdom called Ireland.

Besides the instance and prize courts, there is a criminal jurisdiction in the lord high admiral over all crimes and offences committed on the sea, or on the coasts out of the body of any county, and of death or mayhem in great ships, being or hovering in the main stream of great rivers below the bridges of the same rivers. But

these offences are now by statute 28 Henry VIII. ch. 15. tried by commissioners of oyer and terminer, under the king's great seal; and this is at present the only method of trying marine felonies in the court of admiralty; the judge of the admiralty still presiding therein.

The courts of vice-admiralty will be spoken of hereafter in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE ADMIRALTY LAW IN GENERAL.

It is my purpose in this chapter briefly to analyse the component parts of admiralty law, reserving its regulations until we treat of the particular subjects to which they apply.

The law by which the proceedings of the court of admiralty are governed, is composed of those parts of the civil law which treat of maritime affairs (as far as the decisions of the Roman code upon those subjects have with us been deemed equitable), blended with other maritime laws; the whole corrected, altered, and amended, by acts of parliament and common usage.

The maritime law of Rome was not the natural production of that military state; nor doth it, in the legal institutions of a nation so little addicted to commerce, occupy any considerable space. The lex Aquilia-the laws de nautico fœnore—the law Rhodia de Jactu-that de nautis, cauponi

bus, &c.-De exercitoria actione-De Incendio, naufragio, &c.-De naviculariis-De navibus non excusandis-De Naufragiis(1) comprehend almost all which they have delivered to us on the subject. Peckins, as edited by Vinnius, is the best guide to our knowledge of their naval ideas.

The substance of these laws, as far as they can be interesting to us, may easily be given. They make the exercitor or owner answerable for the contracts of the master, and it is said they also make the ship liable for the same. They certainly do, inasmuch as the res or ship might be arrested by process till bail was given: but I do not find any such case among the tacita pignora of the Romans, though repairs of a ship might, like all other repairs, constitute a tacit pledge. They make the owner liable for the offences of the sailors, but not for their contracts. The owner was not liable for contracts of the master exceeding his authority: he was liable, therefore, for the wages of the sailors, or money laid out and lent for the repair of the ship; but not if the master contracted to hire out the ship, when he was only authorised to convey the merchandize on board her. The creditor might sue

(1) These laws are found in the Pandects and Code respectively as follow:-Lib. 14. tit. 2.-Lib. 4. tit. 9.-Lib. 14. tit. 1.-Lib. 47. tit. 9. of the Pandects, and of the Code.— Lib. 11. tit. 1.—and same lib. 11. tit. 5.

either master or owner, and, if there were partowners, each of them for his whole debt (2).

The laws on average and contribution do not materially differ from those of modern days, and have served as models for them.

The laws of marine interest declare that the risk of the lender on the credit of ship or cargo, shall commence from the sailing of the ship: that extraordinary interest for the risk, si modo in aleæ speciem non cadat, if not on a gambling contract, shall be allowed; and that even shipwreck shall not excuse the borrower, unless he expressly stipulates that the money shall not be paid until the ship reaches its destined port.

The Aquilian law, as construed and extended by equitable construction to all damage done to the property of another by irrational agents, is very general indeed. That part which relates to ships, or which is founded upon it, provides, that if a ship be run down by another through the fault of the crew, its whole value shall be paid; if by accident, nothing; and the fault, when it is such, sometimes falls on the sailors, sometimes on the

owner.

The exercitor was answerable for all the merchandize and effects carried in his ship, even to a

(2) These regulations are contained in the law in the 14th book of the Pandects, on actions against owners, De Exercitoria Actione. Those on average and contribution in the celebrated Rhodian law de Jactu.