stampato a ricoretto nel quale sono scritti capitoli a statuti e buone ordinationi, che le antichi ordinerono per li casi de mercantie et di mari et mercante et marinari et patroni di navilio."(a)

"Ici commence le livre du consulat, nouvellement corrige et imprimé, dans lequel sont contenus les loix et les ordonnances sur les actes maritimes et mercantiles."(b)

185. Le Guidon de la Mer. This is an ancient treatise entitled "Le Guidon pour ceux que font marchandize et qui mettent à la Mer ;" written in French for the use of the merchants of Rouen. It is devoted mainly to the law of Maritime Insurance, but Cleirac declares, that it is written with such consummate ability that, in explaining the contracts of insurance, the author has completely elucidated the whole subject of maritime contracts and naval commerce. It is a work of the

highest authority.(c)

186. The Laws of the Hanse Towns.-In the year 1254, Lubec, Brunswick, Dantzic, and Cologne, in Germany, and subsequently, Bruges in Flanders, London in England, and Novorgood in Russia, and the principal cities of the Rhine, and other portions of Europe, constituted a sort of maritime confederacy for the protection and promotion of their commercial interests; and for that purpose, about the year 1597, formed a code of maritime law of the greatest respectability-embracing in its brief articles much of what had before existed in the separate codes of the Hanseatic and other cities, and the nations of Europe.

This code may be found in 3 Pard. 431, 455. Miege's Anc. Sea Laws. Brow. Civ. and Ad. 39. 3 Kent Comm. 1 to 21. Cleirac, 157, 166. Pet. Ad. Dec. Append. Sea Laws, 190, 195.

187. The other maritime ordinances and codes which had

(a) 2 Pard. 1, 49. Grotius de Jur. Bel. & Par. Lib. 3, chap. note 4. 5 Pard Loix. Mar. 11.

(b) 2 Boucher Consulat, 1, title.

(c) 2 Pard. Loix. Mar. 369, 377. Cleirac, 181. Brown Civ. and Ad. 41.

existed before that time, were numerous, and are here briefly enumerated in the order in which maritime legislation or codification was commenced in each nation or city.

A. D. 940. The Maritime Law of Norway. 3 Pard. 1, 21. Maritime Law of the Two Sicilies. 5 Pard. 214, 237.

1063.

Maritime Law of Iceland. 3 Pard. 45, 55.

1150.

1158.

Maritime Law of Denmark. 3 Pard. 205, 229.

Maritime Law of Lubec. 3 Pard. 391, 399. 1160. Maritime Law of Pisa and Florence. 4 Pard.

545, 569.

1224. Maritime Law of the Prussian States. 3 Pard.

447, 459.

1232. Maritime Law of Venice and Austria. 5 Pard. 1. Maritime Law of Catalonia, Aragon, Valence,

1243.

1254.

and Majorca. 5 Pard. 321, 333.

Maritime Law of Sweden. 3 Pard. 89, 111. 1270. Maritime Law of Hamburgh. 3 Pard. 329, 337. 1270. Maritime Law of Russia. 3 Pard. 489, 505. 1303. Maritime Law of Bremen. 3 Pard. 309, 317. Maritime Law of the Papal States. 5 Pard. 99, 113.

1316. Maritime Law of Genoa. 5 Pard. 419, 439. Maritime Law of Sardinia. 5 Pard. 267, 281.

CHAPTER XII.

"Admiralty" and "Maritime."

188. In the foregoing brief review of the Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction of the different portions of the British Empire, of the original States of an Union, and of the nations of Continental Europe, it has been shown that Admiralty and Maritime cases consist of many very numerous classes of cases every where distinctly characterized by their relation to ships and shipping. That of these numerous and various cases, the English Admiralty Court, at the time of the American Revolution, entertained jurisdiction of but very few-the Admiralty Courts of Scotland still more-the British Colonial Courts of Vice-Admiralty still more-the early English Admiralty still more-the French Admiralty Courts, and those of other continental nations, still more-and that the extent and the character of these various jurisdictions were plainly written in the known evidences of the law, when our constitution gave to the federal government jurisdiction of all cases of Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction. With these various jurisdictions to choose from, if any one was to be adopted, it is hardly rational to suppose that that one would not have been specified or in some manner indicated. If no intention as to the extent of jurisdiction had been indicated, it would be evident that the matter was to be left to the Congress; but it was important, in a national point of view, that all uncertainty should be removed, and the broadest grant was therefore made of all cases.

189. It has been stated in another place, that the English language is the only link that connects the laws and institutions of the United States with those of Great Britain; and that to the English law and to English Dictionaries, we must resort for the meaning of the words used in the Constitution. If we bring the Admiralty and Maritime grant in the Constitution to this test, we shall find that the words Admiralty and Maritime

then had, as they now have, a well established signification entirely in harmony with their use by the great civilians who made the Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction the study of

their lives.(a)

ADMIRALTY. A Court having cognizance in all Maritime affairs, civil as well as criminal. MARITIME.-Relating to the sea; marine.

Johnson's Dic. edit. 1755. Falconer's Maritime Dic. Law Dic. Bell's Law Dic.

Barclay's Dic. Webster's Dic. Corvell's Law Dic. Cunningham's Bouvier's Law Dic.

190. It will be seen, also, that the words Admiralty and Maritime are of constant occurrence in the works of the jurists of Holland and Spain, as well as those of England, Scotland, and France; and those words have thus acquired an established signification, of which the framers of the Constitution can not be supposed to have been ignorant. Nor can they be presumed to have used them in any narrower sense than that in which they have been used for centuries by the whole commercial world. On general principles, it cannot be presumed, that they were used in any local or merely municipal sense. The fact that the Admiralty Court of England was not permitted by the King's Bench to exercise jurisdiction in all Admiralty and Maritime cases, but was confined to a very few-the residue being monopolized by the common law courts-can in no manner affect the proper force and signification of those words. Common respect for the wisdom of our ancestors, prevents us from believing, that so paltry a class of cases as those which were left to the English Admiralty at the time of our Revolution, was deemed by them necessary to be embraced in the National Constitution, as unsafe to be trusted to the States, or of sufficient importance, in a national point of view, to be solemnly granted to the national judiciary.

They do not rise to the respectability of a class of cases, nor have they any national character, or general commercial importance, to distinguish them from the great mass of Admiralty

(a) § 32, 191.

and Maritime cases; nor have I been able to imagine any reason whatever why those cases, alone, should have been transferred to the general government; nor have I ever met with even an alleged reason for supposing that they were transferred to the general government, because the English Court of Admiralty entertained jurisdiction of them. It must have been for a higher, more patriotic, and more international reason, that the States surrendered the whole subject to the federal government.(a)

§ 191. If we examine the etymology or received use of the words Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction, we shall find that they include the judicial jurisdiction of the admiral, and of all maritime causes, or causes arising from things done upon and relating to the sea; or, in other words, all transactions and proceedings relative to commerce and navigation, and to damages or injuries upon the sea, or navigable waters of the nation, and on the high seas. In the maritime codes, and their commentators, and in the writings of the greatest jurists, in all the great maritime nations of Europe, the terms Admiralty jurisdiction are uniformly applied to the courts exercising jurisdiction over maritime contracts and concerns, and administering the general maritime law. The judges of the common law courts in England, in a spirit which has been alluded to, use them in a narrower sense; but the distinguished men who practised and presided in the Admiralty, and who made such subjects their peculiar study, always used those words in their wider and more appropriate sense; and there was no superior sanctity in the decisions at common law upon the subject of the jurisdiction of those courts, which should entitle them to outweigh the very able and learned decisions of the great civilians of the Admiralty. In seeking for the proper signification of those words even in England, where could we so properly search for information on the subject as in the works of those jurists, who

(a) Ante, § 4, 5, 38, 39, 40. 2 Gall. 468. 5 How. 456, 7. 5 How. 452, 3. 6 How. 385. Ante, § 27, 28.