the Naval Academy having the highest standing in scholarship,
who are given a two years' graduate course, generally abroad,
on being graduated from the Academy, and are then appointed
assistant naval constructors. All other staff officers are
appointed directly from civil life by the president, from
candidates passing prescribed examinations. Each representative
and delegate in Congress has authority to nominate a candidate
for naval cadet whenever his congressional district has no
representative in the Naval Academy. The candidate must be
a resident of the district which the congressman represents,
between fifteen and twenty years old, and must pass prescribed
mental and physical examinations. The president is allowed
ten representatives at the Academy at all times, appointed
``at large,'' and one appointed from the District of Columbia.
The course of instruction at the Academy is four years,
each comprising eight months' study, three months' practice
cruise, and one month's furlough. At the expiration of four
years, cadets are sent to cruising ships for two years'
further instruction, and are then commissioned ensigns.
After three years' further sea service, ensigns are promoted
to lieutenants (junior grade). After this, promotion is
dependent upon seniority alone, the senior officer in any
grade being promoted to the lowest number in the next higher
grade when a vacancy occurs in the higher grade, and not
before. All officers are retired on three-fourths sea pay at
the age of sixty-two, or whenever a board of medical officers
certifies that an officer is not physically qualified to
perform all duties of his grade. A few officers are allowed
to retire voluntarily in certain circumstances, to stimulate
promotion. Any officer on the retired list may be ordered by
the secretary to such duty as he may be able to perform: this
is a legal provision to provide for emergencies. Promotion in
the staff corps is dependent upon seniority, though relative
rank in the lower grades in some corps somewhat depends upon
promotion of line officers of the same length of service,
and accounts for the existence of staff officers in the same
grade having different ranks. All sea-going officers, after
commission, are required to spend three years at sea, and are
then usually employed on shore-duty for a time, according to
the needs of the service--short terms of shore-duty thereafter
alternating with three-year cruises. This rule is adhered
to as strictly as circumstances will permit. Shore-duty
includes executive or distinctly professional duties in the
Navy Department, under its bureaus, and at navy yards and
stations; inspection of ordnance, machinery, dynamos, &c., under
construction by private firms; duty on numerous temporary or
permanent boards; instructors at the Naval Academy; recruiting
duty; charge of branch hydrographic offices; inspection duty
in the lighthouse establishment; at state nautical schools;
as attaches with United States legations; and many others.
Naval constructors (usually), civil engineers and professors of
mathematics are continuously employed on shore-duty connected
with their professions, the Naval Observatory, Nautical
Almanac and the Naval Academy employing most of the last.
Warrant officers (boatswains, gunners, carpenters, sailmakers,
warrant machinists and pharmacists) are appointed by the
secretary, preference being given to enlisted men in the navy
who have shown marked ability for the positions. They must be
between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age, and pass an
examination. After serving satisfactorily for one year under
an acting appointment, they receive warrants that secure the
permanency of their office. Ten years after appointment,
boatswains, gunners, carpenters and sailmakers are eligible
for examination for a commission as chief-boatswain,
&c., and as such they rank with, but next after, ensigns.
Mates are rated by the secretary from seamen or ordinary
seamen. They have no relative rank, but take precedence
of all petty officers. Their duties approximate to those
of boatswains, though they seldom serve on large cruising
vessels. Clerks to pay officers are appointed by the
secretary on the nominations of the pay officers. They have
no rank and are not promoted or retired. Their appointments
are revoked when their services are no longer needed.
Boys between fifteen and seventeen years old of good character,
who can read and write and pass the physical examination, may
enlist for the term of their minority. They enlist as third-
class apprentices, and are given six months' instruction at a
training station, and thence go to sea in apprentice training
vessels. When proficient they are transferred to regular
cruising vessels as second class, and when further qualified
are rated first class. All other enlistments are for four
years. Recruits must speak English. Landsmen are usually
sent to sea on special training-ships until proficient,
and are then sent into general service. Raw recruits may
enlist as landsmen, or coal-passers or mess attendants.
Ordinary seamen must have served two years, and seamen four
years before the mast, prior to first enlistment as such;
and before enlistment in any other rating allowed on first
enlistment, applicants must prove their ability to hold such
rating. Landsmen, coal-passers, &c., as soon as they become
proficient, are advanced to higher grades, and, if American
citizens, may eventually become petty officers (ranking with
army non-commissioned officers), with acting appointments.
In twelve months, or as soon thereafter as proficiency is
established, the acting appointment is made permanent, and an
acting appointment for the next higher grade is issued, &c.
Permanent appointments are not revokable except by sentence of
court-martial, and a man re-enlists in that rating for which
he held a permanent appointment in his previous enlistment.
All persons re-enlisting within four months after expiration
of previous enlistment are entitled to a bounty equal to four
months' pay, and in addition receive a ``continuous service
certificate,'' which entitles them to higher pay and to other
special considerations. The same is true for each re-enlistment.
When an enlisted man completes thirty years' service and is
over fifty years of age he may retire on three-fourths pay.
The Marine corps (see MARINES) is a wholly separate military
body, but it is under the control of the Navy Department.
United States naval vessels are, as a rule, built at
private yards under contracts awarded after competition.
The government is not committed to any fixed policy or
building programme. Each year the secretary recommends
certain new construction. The final action rests with
Congress, which must appropriate money for the new ships
before the construction can be commenced. Repairing and
reconstruction are usually done at government navy yards.
Ships in commission are distributed among five stations: (1)
the North Atlantic, i.e. the Atlantic coast of the United
States, Central America, and South America as far as the
Amazon, also the West Indies; (2) the South Atlantic, i.e.
the remainder of the Atlantic coast of South America and both
coasts of South Africa; (3) the European, comprising the coast
of Europe, including the inland seas, and the North Atlantic
coast of Africa; (4) the Asiatic station, comprising the
coast of Asia, including the islands north of the equator,
also the east coast of North Africa; (5) the Pacific station,
comprising the Pacific coast of North and South America,
and Australia and the adjacent islands lying south of the
equator. Each station is commanded by a flag officer, and
the number of ships under the command varies according to
circumstances. Ships in commission on special service,
such as training, gunnery, surveying ships, &c., are not
attached to stations. The shore stations of the navy
are enumerated in the article on DOCKYARDS. (W. T. S.)
ADMIRALTY, HIGH COURT OF. The High Court of Admiralty of
England was the court of the deputy or lieutenant of the
admiral. It is supposed in the Black Book of the Admiralty
to have been founded in the reign of Edward I.; but it would
appear, from the learned discussion of R. G. Marsden, that
it was established as a civil court by Edward III. in the
year 1360; the power of the admiral to determine matters of
discipline in the fleet, and possibly questions of piracy and
prize, being somewhat earlier. Even then the court as such
took no formal shape; but the various admirals began to receive
in their patents express grants of jurisdiction with powers to
appoint lieutenants or deputies. At first there were separate
admirals or rear-admirals of the north, south and west, each
with deputies and courts. A list of them was collected by Sir H.
Spelman. These were merged in or absorbed by one high court
early in the 15th century. Sir Thomas Beaufort, afterwards
earl of Dorset and duke of Exeter (appointed admiral of the
fleet 1407, and admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine 1412,
which latter office he held till his death in 1426), certainly
had a court, with a marshal and other officers, and forms of
legal process--mandates, warrants, citations, compulsories,
proxies, &c. Complaints of encroachment of jurisdiction by the
Admiralty Courts led to the restraining acts, 13 Ric. II. c. 5
(1389), 15 Ric. II. c. 3 (1391) and 2 Hen. IV. c. 11 (1400).
Jurisdiction.
The original object of the institution of the courts or court
seems to have been to prevent or punish piracy and other
crimes upon the narrow seas and to deal with questions of
prize; but civil jurisdiction soon followed. The jurisdiction
in criminal matters was transferred by the Offences at Sea
Act 1536 to the admiral or his deputy and three or four
other substantial persons appointed by the lord chancellor,
who were to proceed according to the course of the common
law. By the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, cognizance of
crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the admiralty
was given to the central criminal court. By an act of
1844 it has been also given to the justices of assize;
and crimes done within the jurisdiction of the admiralty
are now tried as crimes committed within the body of a
county. See also the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 1861.
From the time of Henry IV. the only legislation affecting
the civil jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty till
the time of Queen Victoria is to be found in an act of 1540,
enabling the admiral or his lieutenant to decide on certain
complaints of freighters against shipmasters for delay in
sailing, and one of 1562, giving the lord high admiral of
England, the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, their lieutenants
and judges, co-ordinate power with other judges to enforce
forfeitures under that act--a very curious and miscellaneous
statute called ``An Act for the Maintenance of the Navy.''
In an act of 1534, with regard to ecclesiastical appeals from
the courts of the archbishops to the crown, it is provided
that the appeal shall be to the king in Chancery, ``and
that upon every such appeal a commission shall be directed
under the great seal to such persons as shall be named by
the king's highness, his heirs or successors, like as in
cases of appeal from the Admiralty Court.'' The appeal to
these ``persons,'' called delegates, continued until it was
transferred first to the privy council and then to the judicial
committee of the privy council by acts of 1832 and 1833.
