in any Court of Admiralty in the Colony or Plantation where the offense was committed, for any penalty or forfeiture inflicted by any parliamentary act relating to the trade and revenues of the British Colonies and Plantations in America, the aggrieved party might appeal to any Court of Vice-Admiralty appointed or to be appointed, and which should have jurisdiction within such Colony, Plantation or Place; which court was directed to hear and determine the appeal.'

Governor Tryon, in the report of 1774, alluded to, says: "From this court (the Court of Admiralty) an appeal lies to a Supreme Court of Admiralty, lately established in North America, by statute; before this establishment, an appeal only lay to the High Court of Admiralty of England."

About 1774, Judge Morris resigned his office, having sided with the Colony against the encroachments of the British Crown. On the 31st of July 1776, the New York Provincial Convention appointed him Judge of the High Court of Admiralty of the State of New York. It also appointed John McKesson Register, and Robert Benson Marshal and Provost Marshal of said court." Mr. Morris declined the office,' and on the fifth of August ensuing, Lewis Graham was appointed by the said Convention in his stead,* and commissioned on the 17th February, 1778.

On the 25th of November, 1775, the Continental Congress recommended the several Legislatures of the United Colonies to erect, as soon as possible, Admiralty Courts to determine concerning captures taken in the war existing between said Colonies and Great Britain, and to provide that all trials in such cases be had by a jury, under qualifications which the said legislatures should deem expedient. Congress, likewise, declared that in all cases an appeal should be allowed to them, or to such person or persons as they should appoint for the trial of appeals."

In 1777, Congress, after appointing and discharging two other committees, appointed on the thirteenth of October a standing com

1 British Statutes at Large, vol. 13, p. 15.

2 Journal Provincial Convention, New York, 1, 550.

* Journal Provincial Convention, New York, 1, 554.

4 Journal Provincial Convention, New York, 1, 556. 5 Journal of Congress, 1, 260.

mittee of five of its members, they or any three to hear and finally determine upon appeals brought to said Congress from the Admiralty Courts of the respective States.' Three more members were added on the twenty-seventh of July in the next year, any three of the whole committee to hear and determine appeals.2

The Articles of Confederation (entered into by the States, July 9th, 1778), by their ninth article, declared that the United States, in Congress assembled, should have the sole and exclusive right of establishing rules for deciding in all cases what captures on land or water should be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States should be divided or appropriated; also, the same right of appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and of establishing courts for receiving and determining, finally, appeals in all cases of captures. They also provided that no member of Congress should be appointed a judge of any of said courts.

On the 6th of March, 1779, Congress declared that they or those appointed to determine appeals (viz., a committee of their own members) from the Admiralty Courts, had necessarily the power to examine as well into decisions on facts as decisions on the law, and decree finally thereon; and that no finding of a jury in any Admiralty Court, or court for determining the legality of captures on the high seas, could or ought to destroy the right of appeal and reëxamination of facts reserved to Congress; and that no act of any one State could or ought to destroy the right of appeals to Congress in the sense above declared."

In 1780, however, on the fifteenth of January, there was established a court for the trial of appeals from the Courts of Admiralty in the United States, in cases of capture, denominated, by a resolution of Congress, May twenty-four of that year, "the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture," to consist of three judges appointed and commissioned by Congress, either two of whom, in absence of the other, to hold the said court for dispatch of business. The court appointed its own register. Congress further declared, that the trials in the said court should be according to the usage of nations and not by jury.*

3 Journal of Congress, 5, 87.

1 Journal of Congress, 3, 430.

2 Journal of Congress, 4, 429.

* Journal of Congress, 6, 14.

The salaries of the judges were fixed at $2,250 each.'

On the 28th of October, 1779, Congress ordered that a Board of Admiralty should be established to superintend the naval and marine affairs of the United States, to consist of three commissioners, not Members of Congress, and two Members of Congress, any three of whom to form a board for the dispatch of business, to be subject in all cases to the control of Congress; no more than one member of the board, at any time, should belong to the same State; that there should be a secretary to the board, appointed by Congress, and a clerk, appointed by the board, and that the said board should sit in the place where Congress should be held, and all its proceedings should be inspected by Congress, or a committee appointed for that purpose, as often as might be thought proper or convenient; that the salary of each of the three commissioners who should conduct the business of the Admiralty Board should be $14,000 per annum, and that of the secretary of the board be $10,000 per annum; said salaries to be annually or oftener, if Congress should judge it expedient, revised and altered agreeably to the appreciation of the Continental currency."

On the 5th of April, 1781, Congress, by an ordinance pursuant to the Articles of Confederation, established courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas.'

In 1786, the salaries of the Judges of the Court of Appeals were abolished by Congress, "as the war was at an end, and the business of the court, in a great measure, done away." In lieu thereof, ten dollars a day were allowed them for attendance on and travel to and from said court.*

On the 14th of February, 1787, the New York Legislature passed an act to prevent encroachments of the Court of Admiralty of the State, in which it was directed that the said court should not meddle or hold plea of anything done within this State, but only of things done upon the sea "as it had been formerly used." That of all manner of contracts, pleas and quarrels, and of all other things done, arising within the body of any county in this State, as well by land as by water, and also of wreck of the sea,

1 Journal of Congress, 6, 182.

2 Journal of Congress, 5, 395–397.

3 Journal of Congress, 7, 76.

4 Journal of Congress, 11, 33-123.

the said court should have no cognizance, power or jurisdiction, but all the above matters should be tried and remedied by the laws of the land, and not by the said court. Cognizance should be had, however, by the said court of the death of any person, and of mayhem done, in vessels in the main stream of great rivers out of the body of any county, or nigh to the sea, and in no other places of said rivers.

It was provided, however, that nothing in the above act should extend to any libel, information or suit in said court, for or concerning the forfeiture of any goods, wares or merchandise seized by virtue of an act imposing duties on certain goods, wares and merchandise imported into this State.'

On the 17th of September, 1787, the present Constitution of the United States was adopted by the Federal Convention.

In its formation it was thought proper, by reason of the relation of maritime commerce to the intercourse of the whole people with other nations, or to the intercourse between themselves, to vest the entire admiralty jurisdiction in the Federal Government.

Consequently, by section second of that Constitution, it was decreed that the judicial power of the United States should embrace "all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction," and in 1789, at the adoption by our State of the said Constitution, the Admiralty Court of the State of New York ceased to exist.

In following out the section above referred to, Congress, by an act passed on the 24th of September, 1789, vested in the District Courts of the United States exclusive original cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, including all seizures under laws of impost, navigation or trade of the United States, where the seizures were made on waters navigable from the sea by vessels of ten or more tons burthen, within their respective districts, as well as upon the high seas, saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common law remedy, where the common law was competent to give it.'

An act, five days later, directed that the forms and modes of proceeding in causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction should be

1 Laws of New York (Loudon's ed.), 47.

2 Laws of United States (Bioren & Duane's ed.), 2, 60.

according to the course of the civil law. The second section of an act passed in 1792, prescribed that the forms and modes of the above jurisdiction should be according to the principles, rules and usages which belong to the Courts of Admiralty as contradistinguished from courts of common law, except so far as may have been provided for by the act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States, subject, however, to such alterations and additions as the said courts should in their discretion deem expedient, or such regulations as the Supreme Court of the United States should think proper from time to time by rule to prescribe to any Circuit or District Court concerning the same.

On the 29th of April, 1812, it was enacted that the District Court, in the New York district, should consist of two judges who should reside in said district; that the senior judge should preside in the District Court, and in case of difference between the judges, his opinion should prevail, and that said court should be held by one judge in the absence of the other. The senior judge, or in his absence the other judge, and one of the justices of the Supreme Court should compose the Circuit Court of the United States in said district.'

This arrangement was altered on the 11th of April, 1814, by an act dividing the State of New York into two Judicial Districts, the Northern and Southern, for each of which a judge was to be appointed, and directing the Circuit Court to be thereafter held for the Southern District only. The Northern District Court, besides the ordinary jurisdiction of a District Court, was to have jurisdiction of all causes (except of appeals and writs of error), cognizable by law in a Circuit Court of the United States; writs of error to lie from decisions therein to the Circuit Court in the southern district of New York in the same manner as from other District Courts to their respective Circuit Courts.'

Appeals now lie from all final decrees of the District Courts, in causes of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and cases of prize where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of $50, exclusive of costs, to the next United States Circuit Court to be holden in the district where the decree is pronounced; and from

1 Laws United States, 421, 422.

2 Laws United States, 679.