of its adjudication claimed by the lord warden, it has not been unusual for the captor, notwithst anding, to return the papers into the admiralty of England, and for the claimant from thence to issue a monition to proceed to adjudication, (and then the cause attaches there) to which monition the lord warden has sometimes appeared to claim his alledged privileges, as in the case of the Oester Eems, but without success.

In the letters of Sir L. Jenkins, we find a commission of review granted by the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, of a sentence given by the admirals thereof, and his opinion that this could not be reversed by the crown, though it might by a court of Sheppey.

CHAPTER XIV.

OF CONSULS.

WHEN trade and commerce began to flourish in modern Europe, and controversy thence to spring, reason dictated to merchants and mariners. the desire of a court formed of men acquainted with trade and maritime affairs. Permission to erect such tribunals was soon obtained from various princes; and vanity, perhaps, inspired the idea of giving to these minor judges the magnificent appellation of consuls(1).

The institution is a kind of court-merchant, to determine affairs relative to commerce in a summary way. Their authority depends very much on their commission, and on the words of the treaty, or the extent of the permission on which it

(1) I must refer the reader for the origin, nature, and power of the office of consuls, as first established, particularly in Spain, to the Consolato del Mare, which begins with a large discussion of the subject from which it takes its

name.

is 'founded. In France and Spain the office is viewed in a twofold light, domestic and foreign: in England only in the latter, we having no consular establishment within the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to settle disputes between our own traders (2).

The first jurisdiction of consuls in France was that of Tholouse in 1519.

Acts made in foreign countries are not valid in France, unless made legal by the consul. Their consuls abroad have a chancery (3) and registry. They are to authenticate instruments, to take inventories of the goods of their countrymen who die abroad, and of effects saved from shipwreck; and they are a criminal court, without appeal, with respect to offences among their compatriots, not inducing corporeal penalty, which if they do, the consuls are to send the criminals home to be tried by the laws of their country(4).

Our English consuls are to take care of the affairs of our trade, and of the interests, rights, and pri

(2) The want of such a tribunal has occasioned the merchants in many sea-ports to form a kind of domestic judicature, or society of arbitrators, by consent amongst themselves, to decide mercantile disputes.

(3) We have heard too much of the chanceries of the French consuls in Norway, in Sweden, taking upon themn to condemn prizes in the late war.

(4) I apprehend, however, for enormous crimes, as murther, the legislature of the country where the fact happened, would scarcely leave this liberty to the consul.

vileges of our merchants and seamen in foreign

countries.

Their authority will be best illustrated by reference to the various acts of parliament relative to their duties (5), and by the cases inserted in the Appendix for the purpose of its further illustration. Even where they have express authority, it is the constant practice, and most useful resource of all commercial strangers and mariners, to apply in matters of any difficulty or embarrassment to the consul of their nation for advice and assistance; and he is the natural arbitrator of all their disputes.

To sum up briefly the points most material to be known as to consuls-they are, that their powers may be founded in treaty or in permission, and that the powers of the former are generally

(5) To enumerate all these would be too long a task. One or two nay serve by way of example. By 8 Geo. I. ch. 17. the consuls in Portugal may call a general meeting of merchants and factors, and may, with the consent of a majority, levy certain sums from all ships trading there, for the relief of shipwrecked mariners and other charitable purposes. By 9 Geo. II. ch. 25. and 10 Geo. II. ch. 14. the like power is given to consuls in Spain and at Leghorn. By other statutes he is to relieve all distressed British seamen and merchants, to allow them sixpence a day for their support, to send them home in the first British vessels that sail, and to give free passes to all poor British subjects returning home. But for further particulars of a British consul's privileges and duties, I must refer the reader to this head in Beawes's Lex Mercatoria.

greater, and always less disputable; and to know with precision what powers are claimed by any particular consul, his commission must in the first instance be referred to. That a consul is not a public minister, but in general a person conversant and employed in trade, and liable to the lex loci both civil and criminal, and therefore I conceive not exempt from arrests even in civil suits. That his privileges, such as exemptions from certain taxes or burthens, depend in each place, if not on treaty, upon custom. That they are not with us elected, as of old, by the merchants, but appointed by the secretaries of state. And that their proper business is to protect and assist the persons and trade of their own countrymen abroad; settle, if possible, disputes or controversies between them; and, if necessary, convey their complaints to the government of the place.

CONCLUSION.

THE plan of this work being now executed, which, however confined in its compass, purports at least to be original in its design and plan as an admiralty treatise; and to guide the reader to those springs in which he may gratify his thirst for