may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the High
Court in matters of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,
The Isle of Man.
There is a court of admiralty in the Isle of Man of which
the water-bailiff is judae. He is also styled admiral.
It is said to have jurisdiction in salvage and over other
maritime matters occurring within 3 leagues from the shore.
County Local Courts.
Modern statutes have given admiralty jurisdiction to the City
of London Court, the Court of Passage and to the county courts
in the following matters: Salvage, where the value of the
salved property does not exceed L. 1000, or the claim for reward
L. 300; towage, necessaries and wages, where the claim does
not exceed L. 150; claims for damage to cargo, or by collision,
up to L. 300 (and for sums above these prescribed limits by
agreement between the parties); and claims arising out of
breaches of charter parties and other contracts for carriage
of goods in foreign ships, or torts in respect thereof, up to
L. 300. This jurisdiction is restricted to subjects over which
jurisdiction was possessed by the High Court of Admiralty at
the time when the first of these acts was passed, except as
regards the last branch of it (the ``Aline,'' 1880, 5 Ex.
Div. 227; R. v. Judge of City of London Court, 1892, 1 Q.B.
272). In analogy with the county court admiralty jurisdiction
created in England, a limited admiralty jurisdiction has
been given in Ireland to the recorders of certain boroughs
and the chairmen of certain quarter sessions; and in salvage
cases, where a county court in England would have jurisdiction,
magistrates, recorders and chairmen of quarter sessions may
have jurisdiction as official arbitrators (Merchant Shipping
Act 1894, sec. 547). In Scotland, admiralty suits in cases
not exceeding the value of L. 25 are exclusively tried in the
sheriff's court; while over that limit the sheriff's court
and the Court of Session have concurrent jurisdiction. The
sheriff has also criminal admiralty jurisdiction, but only
as to crimes which he would be competent to try if committed
on land (The Court of Session Act 1830, sec. sec. 21 and 22).
By an act of 1821 an arbitral jurisdiction in cases of salvage
was given to certain commissioners of the Cinque Ports.
Appeals.
The appeal from county courts and commissioners is to the
High Court of Justice, and is exercised by a divisional court
of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. In cases
arising within the Cinque Ports there is an optional appeal
to the Admiralty Court of the Cinque Ports. The appeal from
the High Court of Justice is in ordinary admiralty matters,
as in others, to the Court of Appeal, and from thence to
the House of Lords. But it is specially provided by the
Judicature Act 1891, as it was by the Prize Act 1864, that the
appeal in prize cases shall be to the sovereign in council.
The unfortunate provisions of the legislature, giving to
the jurisdiction of county courts different money limits in
admiralty equity and common law cases, make the distinction
between cases coming under the admiralty jurisdiction and other
civil cases of practical moment in those courts. Arguments
full of learning and research have been addressed to the
courts, and weighty decisions have been given, upon questions
which would never have arisen if the county courts had not a
larger money area of jurisdiction in admiralty cases than they
have in in other matters (R. v. Judge of City of London
Court, 1892, 1 Q.B. 273; the ``Zeta,'' 1893, App. Cas.
468). But as regards the high courts, whether in England,
Scotland or Ireland, it is not now necessary to distinguish
their civil admiralty jurisdiction from their ordinary civil
jurisdiction, except for the purpose of seeing whether there
can or cannot be process in rem. Not that every admiralty
action can of right be brought in rem, but that no process
in rem lies at the suit of a subject unless it be for a matter
of admiralty jurisdiction--one, for instance, that could in
England have been tried in the High Court of Admiralty. Now
these matters of admiralty jurisdiction with process in rem
range themselves under four primary and four supplementary
heads. The four primary are damage, salvage, bottomry,
wages; and the four supplementary are extensions due to one
or other of the statutes of 1840 (Admiralty Court) and 1861
(Admiralty Court Act). They are damage to cargo carried in a
ship, necessaries supplied to a ship, mortgage of ship, and
master's claim for wages and disbursements on account of a
ship. In all these cases, primary and secondary, the process
of which a plaintiff can avail himself for redress, may be
either in personam as in other civil suits, or by arrest
of the ship, and, in cases of salvage and bottomry, the
cargo. Whenever, also, the ship can be arrested, any freight
due can also be attached, by arrest of the cargo to the extent
only of the freight which it has to pay. For the purpose of
ascertaining whether or not process in rem would lie, there
have been distinctions as nice, and the line of admiralty
jurisdiction has been drawn as carefully, as in the cases of the
admiralty jurisdiction of the county courts (the ``Theta,''
1894, Prob. 280; the ``Gas Float Whitton,'' 1897, App. Cas.
337). There have been similar questions raised in the United
States, from De Lovio v. Boit (1815, 2 Gallison, 398),
and Ramsay v. Allegre (1827, 12 Wheaton, 611), down to
the quite modern cases which will be found quoted in the
arguments and judgments in the ``Gas Float Whitton.''
Disciplinary.
The disciplinary jurisdiction at one time exercised by
the Admiralty Court, over both the royal navy and merchant
vessels, may be said to be obsolete in time of peace, the
last remnant of it being suits against merchantmen for
flying flags appropriate to men-of-war (the ``Minerva,''
1800, 3 C. Rob. 34), a matter now more effectively provided
against by the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. In time of war,
however, it was exercised in some instances as long as the
Admiralty Court lasted, and is now in consequence exercisable
by the High Court of Justice (see Prize below). It
was, perhaps, in consequence of its ancient disciplinary
jurisdiction that the Admiralty Court was made the court to
enforce certain portions of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
Finally, appeals from decisions of courts of inquiry, under the
Merchant Shipping Act, cancelling or suspending the certificates
of officers in the merchant service, may be made to the Probate,
Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
Criminal cases.
The admiralty jurisdiction in criminal matters extends over
all crimes committed on board British ships at sea or in
tidal waters, even though such tidal waters be well within
foreign territory (R. v. Anderson, 1868, L.R. 1 C.C.R.
161), but not over crimes committed on board foreign vessels
upon the high seas (R. v. Serva, 1845, 1 Denison C.C.
104). Whether it extended over crimes committed on foreign
ships within territorial waters of the United Kingdom, and
whether a zone of three miles round the shores of the United
Kingdom was for such purpose territorial water, were the
great questions raised in R. v. Keyn (the ``Franconia,''
L.R. 2 Ex. Div. 126), and decided in the negative by the
majority of the judges, rightly, as the writer of this
article respectfully thinks. Since then, however, the
legislature has brought these waters within the jurisdiction
of the admiralty by the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act
1878. Section 2 runs as follows: ``An offence committed
by a person, whether he is or is not a British subject,
on the open sea within the territorial waters of British
dominions, is an offence within the jurisdiction of the
admiral, although it may have been committed on board or by
means of a foreign ship, and the person who committed such
offence may be arrested, tried and punished accordingly.''
By sec. 7 the ``jurisdiction of the admiral'' is defined as
``including the jurisdiction of the admiralty of England or
Ireland, or either of such jurisdictions as used in any act
of parliament; and for the purpose or arresting any person
charged with an offence declared by this act to be within the
jurisdiction of the admiral, the territorial waters adjacent
to the United Kingdom, or any other part of her majesty's
dominions, shall be deemed to be within the jurisdiction of any
judge, magistrate or officer.'' And ``territorial waters of
her majesty's dominions'' are defined as ``in reference to the
sea, meaning such part of the sea adjacent to the coast of
the United Kingdom, or the coast of some other part of her
majesty's dominions, as is deemed by international law to be
within the territorial sovereignty of her majesty; and for
the purpose of any offence declared by this act to be within
the jurisdiction of the admiral, any part of the open sea
within one marine league of the coast, measured from low-water
mark, shall be deemed to be open sea within the territorial
waters of her majesty's dominions.'' As to those portions of
the sea and tidal waters which, by reason of their partially
land-locked positions, are deemed to be in the body of a
county, there is not admiralty jurisdiction, but crimes are
tried as if they were committed on land within the same county.
Pirates, whatever flag they pretended to fly, were, from
1360 onwards, wherever their crimes were committed, subject
to the admiralty jurisdiction. The criminal jurisdiction
of the admiralty was first exercised by the High Court of
Admiralty; and then, by virtue of the Offences at Sea Act 1536,
transferred to commissioners appointed under the great seal,
among whom were to be the admiral or admirals, his or their
deputies. Admiralty sessions were held for this purpose till
1834. Admiralty criminal jurisdiction is now, by virtue
of the series of statutes, the Offences at Sea Act 1799,
the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, Offences at Sea Act
1844, and the criminal law consolidation acts passed in
1861, exercised by the Central Criminal Court and by the
ordinary courts of assize. Special provision for trial
in the colonies of offences committed at sea has been made
by an act of William III. (1698-1699), the Offences at Sea
Act 1806, and the Admiralty Offences (Colonial) Act 1849.
Prize.
The Admiralty Court had jurisdiction in matters of prize from
very early times; and although since the middle of the 17th
century the instance, or ordinary civil jurisdiction of the
court, has been kept distinct from the prize jurisdiction,
they were originally both administered and regarded as
being within the ordinary jurisdiction of the lord high
admiral. The early records of the admiralty show that the
origin of the prize jurisdiction is to be traced to the power
given to the court of the admiral to try cases of piracy
and ``spoil,'' i.e. captures of foreign ships by English
ships. The earliest recorded case of spoil tried before the
admiral is in 1357, when the goods of a Portuguese subject,
taken at sea by Englishmen from a French ship which had
previously spoiled a Portuguese, were awarded by the admiral as
good prize to the English captors; and Edward III. in a letter
to the king of Portugal answering a complaint on the subject
gives the admiral's decision as a reason for refusing their
restoration. During the 16th century a very large part of
the business of the Admiralty Court related to spoil and
piracy, and the privy council often directed the judge of the
court how to deal with the spoil cases, with regard to which
