X. - Affreightments, Passen Nature of the Admiralty Jurisdiction. -Its Extension beyond the Ebb and Flow of Tide. - Contracts and Torts. What Contracts are cognizable in Admiralty. gers, Wages, Bottomry and Respondentia Bonds, Insurance. Jettisons and General Average Contributions, Salvage, Consortships, Ransoms, Surveys. WHEN the Judiciary Act was adopted, on the 24th of September, 1789, it established thirteen districts. There were then but eleven States, Rhode Island and North Carolina not then having expressed their assent to the Constitution; but what was known as the District of Maine, then a part of the State of Massachusetts, and the District of Kentucky, then a part of the State of Virginia, were erected into separate districts, making, in the whole, thirteen in number. Now, there are fifty-eight districts, in each of which a District Court exists, constituted and acting as I shall describe hereafter. 1 See Revised Statutes, § 563, subdivision 8. 2. Suits of the United States or its officers in matters concerning the collection of the revenue, and other subjects. 3. Some miscellaneous cases, in which jurisdiction has been given by special statutes. 4. Bankruptcy. 5. Crimes. 1. ADMIRALTY. - No subject of jurisdiction has been so elaborately and ably discussed as that of the admiralty jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution. Two principal causes have produced this discussion: first, the policy of the common law courts in England, and the expression of it by Lord Coke, enforced as it was by those courts through writs of prohibition. The earliest consequence of this is seen in the thirteenth section of the Judiciary Act, which empowered the Supreme Court to issue writs of prohibition to the District Courts, when proceeding as courts of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Second, it involved a question of political power between the States and the United States; because everything granted to the admiralty is so much added to the judicial power of the United States, and taken from the power of the States. The discussion of this important subject was really begun by Mr. Justice Story, in De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gallison, 398, in which he exhausted all the learning then at the command of any lawyer in the United States, to maintain the true scope and intent of the admiralty jurisdiction, and place it on the same ground, and give it the same breadth, that belonged to it under the general maritime law of other civilized nations. The discussion was continued by Judge Ware, in some of the ablest legal dissertations in our language, and renewed by Mr. Justice Story in the cases reported in 3 Mason, 27,1 and 2 Story's Reports, 176.2 These discussions related both to the subject-matter of contracts, over which the admiralty jurisdiction extended, and the localities within which acts must be done, in order that those courts should have jurisdiction. In the mean time, several cases came before the Supreme Court of the United States, in which was developed strong hostility against this jurisdiction by some judges, and, for the time being, the decisions ended by restraining it to the ebb and flow of the tide as to locality, and, as will be seen hereafter, in somewhat narrowing it as to contracts. This judicial history, so far as respects locality, is stated with great clearness by Mr. Justice Miller in The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wallace, 562. But after this came the case of The Eagle, in 8 Wallace, 15, which finally swept away everything contained in the act of 1845, mentioned by Mr. Justice Miller, except 1 Peele v. Merchants' Insurance Co. 2 Hale v. Washington Insurance Co. that trial by jury in certain cases is preserved. The local jurisdiction of the admiralty was thus vindicated, and was found to extend, not merely to the high seas, and the ebb and flow of the tide, but to all the navigable waters of the United States, including the great lakes and rivers. It is not necessary to trace historically, in this connection, the progress made by the Supreme Court as to contracts, but it will be perceived when I come to speak of them.1 The civil admiralty jurisdiction is of two parts: First, instance causes; second, prize causes. What are instance causes over which the District Courts, as courts of admiralty, have jurisdiction? They fall under two general heads; first, contract; second, tort. The first, contract, depends on the subject-matter; it must be a contract of a maritime nature. The second, tort, depends on the locality of the facts out of which the cause of action arises. Much difference of opinion has existed at different times concerning the subject of maritime contracts, what are maritime contracts within the jurisdiction of the admiralty. But gradually principles have been evolved, and they have been applied to so many details, that at present there is 1 The merely internal waters of a State, although navigated by its own vessels, are not within the admiralty jurisdiction. The waters which are now subject to the jurisdiction are those public navigable waters where commerce is carried on between different States, or with a foreign nation. 17 not much difficulty in answering the question, as to any important class of contracts, whether they are maritime, and come under the jurisdiction of the admiralty, or do not. I will state in detail what contracts have been decided to be of admiralty cognizance. First, contracts of affreightment. The case of The New Jersey Steamboat Company v. The Merchants' Bank, 6 Howard, 344, raised this general question, which was twice elaborately argued, and the decision of the court was that a contract to carry merchandise on the navigable waters of the United States was within the jurisdiction of the admiralty. This case was followed by Morewood v. Enequist, 23 Howard, 491, and The Belfast, 7 Wallace, 624, and it is now completely settled that the mutual obligations of the shipper and the shipowner, in respect to merchandise to be carried on the navigable waters of the United States, are entirely within the jurisdiction of that admiralty, whether these obligations result in claims made by the shipper for breach of contract on the part of the ship-owner, or obligations resulting in claims of the ship-owner against the owner of the merchandise; and also, that the form of contract is not material. It may be a bill of lading or a charter-party, or simply by parol. The one thing requisite is, that the merchandise should be placed on board to be carried, and received for that purpose, and out of |