admiralty court

The Sailor's Word-Book

The constitution of this court relatively to the legislative power of the king in council, is analogous to that of the courts of common law relatively to the parliament of the kingdom.


♦ High Court of Admiralty, a supreme court of law, in which the authority of the lord high-admiral is ostensibly exercised in his judicial capacity for the trial of maritime causes of a civil nature. Although termed the High Court of Admiralty, more properly this is the Court of Vice-Admiralty, and relates solely to civil and military matters of the sea, and sea boundaries, prizes, collisions, vessels or goods cast on the shore where the vice-admirals have civil jurisdiction, but no naval power, as the lord-lieutenants of counties are named in their patents "vice-admirals of the same;" in like manner all governors of colonies. All cases in connection are tried by the Admiralty Court in London, or by our "courts of vice-admiralty and prize jurisdictions abroad." Admirable as some of the decisions of this expensive tribunal have been, it has all the powers of the Inquisition in its practice, and has thereby been an instrument of persecution to some innocent navigators, while it has befriended notorious villains. Besides this we have the Admiralty Court of Oyer and Terminer, for the trial of all murders, piracies, or criminal acts which occur within the limits of the country, on the coast-lines, at sea, or wherever the admiralty jurisdiction extends the deck of a British ship included.

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