admiralty jurisdiction, notwithstanding they constitute a species of partnership(a).

II. Jurisdiction in cases of TORT.

The jurisdiction of the admiralty in cases of tort, depends upon locality, and "respects civil torts and injuries done on waters within the admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, comprising, according to a recent decision of the Supreme Court, not only the ocean and tide waters, but the lakes and all the great navigable rivers of the United States (b)."

The following cases are enumerated by Mr. Justice STORY, as unquestionably falling within this branch of jurisdiction, viz: Assaults, or other personal injuries; collisions; spoliation and damage (as they are technically called), such as illegal seizures, or depredations on property; illegal dispossession, or withholding possession from the owner of ships, commonly called possessory suits; cases of seizure under municipal authority, for supposed breaches of revenue or other prohibitory laws; and cases of salvage(c). This enumeration, it will be

(a) Macomber v. Thompson, 1 Sumner's R., 384; The Crusader, Ware's R., 437, 440.

(b) 3 Story's Com. on the Const., 527, 530; The Genesee. Chief, 12 Howard's R., 443 (19 Curtis's Decis. S. C., 233); Fretz v. Bull, id., 466 (19 Curtis's Decis. S. C., 249).

(c) 3 Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, 527, 530.

There can, it is supposed, be little room for doubt that the admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, in cases both of contract and of tort, will be firmly asserted and upheld, to the extent, at least, indicated in the text. Indeed, with two or three exceptions undeniably within the admiralty jurisdiction, all the specified subjects

seen, comprises every description of probable injury CHAP. 1. to person or property, which would constitute a fit subject for private redress in a judicial tribunal. The admiralty jurisdiction in these cases, therefore, may be said to depend purely upon the place where the cause of action arises. In cases of contract, although the jurisdiction is said to result primarily from the nature of the contract; yet as locality con

are enumerated and expressly recognized as embraced within it, by the Rules of Practice in admiralty and maritime cases recently adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States. The enumeration includes also the additional subjects of disputes concerning the title to ships, suits for the adjustment of which are denominated petitory suits (Appendix, Rule 20); and "suits against the ship or freight, founded upon a mere marine hypothecation, either express or implied, of the master, for moneys taken up in a foreign port for supplies or other necessaries for the voyage, without any marine interest." (Appendix, Rule 17.)

In hazarding the prediction that the admiralty jurisdiction of the American courts will not, by any future decision of the Supreme Court, be restricted to limits less ample than those above defined, I desire, however, to be understood, touching matters of contract, to refer more particularly to suits in rem. The proposition which Mr. Justice JOHNSON, in his opinion in the case of Ramsey v. Allegre, labored most zealously to establish, was, that the admiralty has no jurisdiction at all, purely in personam, in cases arising ex contractu, except in the single instance of seamen's wages; and all the cases in which the admiralty jurisdiction, to the extent I have indicated, has been maintained by the Supreme Court, were suits in rem; but a coextensive jurisdiction in personam was incidentally distinctly asserted by that court in the case of The General Smith (4 Wheaton, 438), and is virtually declared in the new Rules. (See Appendix, Rules 12, 14, 17, 18.) [Since the first edition of this work, containing the foregoing note, the distinction insisted on by Mr. Justice JOHNSON has been distinctly repudiated by the Supreme Court. See The New Jersey Steam Navigation Co. v. The Massachusetts Bank of Boston, 6 Howard's R., 344 (16 Curtis's Decis. S. C., 922); and infra coNTRACTS OF AFFREIGHTMENT.]

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Jurisdiction of controversies between foreigners.

salvage.

stitutes one of the essential elements of this species of contract, the jurisdiction may also be said, to that extent, to depend upon locality. The required localities, in each of the two classes of cases, are the same.

Considering the extent of our commercial intercourse with other nations, and the number of foreign vessels which annually visit our ports, it becomes important to inquire, to what extent foreigners, transiently here, are entitled to seek redress on the instance side of the American courts of admiralty.

In the High Court of Admiralty of England, this branch of jurisdiction seems to have been the subject of considerable doubt and difficulty. The earliest and most important reported case on this subject was decided by Sir WILLIAM SCOTT in 1799, the next year after that great judge took his seat in

In cases of the court(a). It was a suit for salvage against an American ship and cargo, rescued by her crew from French captors, and carried into an English port. The crew was composed chiefly of Americans, who were not parties to the suit, they having been referred, by the American ministers, to the courts of their own country. The rest of the crew were British subjects, and it was by them that the suit was instituted. The jurisdiction of the court was contested on account of the foreign character of the vessel; and also on the ground that the libellants, although in fact British subjects, were, as it was insisted, nevertheless to be regarded, in that suit, as

(a) The Two Friends, 1 Robinson's R., 271.

Americans, by reason of their having enrolled them- CHAP. 1. selves, in the United States, as a part of the crew of the American vessel, on board of which the salvage services had been rendered.

Sir WILLIAM SCOTT, after laying down the principle "that every person assisting in rescue has a lien on the thing saved," is reported to have expressed himself as follows: "Then where is this lien to be demanded? It should seem that that was an unnecessary question to be proposed, when the goods were admitted to be in England; but, strange as it may appear, it is argued that this claim is to be enforced in America, because the ship is an American ship, and the parties are American sailors." Having shown that the libellants were to be considered as British subjects, and that the objection that they were to be regarded as American seamen was unfounded in fact, he deemed it unnecessary to answer the question, whether, if the libellants were American seamen, the court would hold plea of their demands. But he significantly added, "In the mean time I will say, without scruple, that I can see no inconvenience that would arise, if a British court of justice was to hold plea in such a case; or, conversely, if American courts were to hold pleas of this nature respecting the merits of British seamen on such occasions for salvage is a question of the jus gentium, and materially different from the question of a mariner's contract, which is a creature of the peculiar institutions of each country, to be applied, and construed, and explained, by its own particular rules. There might be good reason, therefore, for

VOL. 1.

this court to decline to interfere in such cases, and to remit them to their own domestic forum: but this is a general claim upon the ground of quantum meruit, to be governed by a sound discretion, acting on general principles; and I can see no reason why one country should be afraid to trust to the equity of the courts of another on such a question, of such a nature, to be so determined."

After noticing and answering the further objection which had been urged at the bar, that different rules relative to the amount of distribution of salvage might prevail in different countries, he summed up the matter thus: "These considerations, therefore, found no solid objections against the exercise of the jurisdiction; but I go farther, and say, that I think there is great reason for it, because it is the only way of enforcing the best security-that of the lien on the property itself. Between parties who were all Americans, if there was the slightest disinclination to submit to the jurisdiction of this court, I should certainly not incline to interfere; for this court is not hungry after jurisdiction, where the exercise of it is not felt to be beneficial to the parties between whom it is to operate. At the same time, I desire to be understood to deliver no decided opinion whether American seamen, rescuing an American ship and cargo brought into this country, might not maintain an action in rem in this court of the law of nations; but if there was British property on board, and American seamen were to proceed here against that, I should think it a criminal desertion of my duty did I not support their