XI. Admiralty Jurisdiction continued. Disputes between Partowners. Petitory and Possessory Suits. - Liability of Owners for Torts: Ancient and Statutory Limitation. - Locality of Torts the Test of the Jurisdiction. - Remedy in Personam or in Rem. Collisions. - Spoliations. — Augmentations of Force in Neutral Waters. - Captures on the High Seas. - Revenue Seizures. Forfeitures for Violations of Law. - Prize Jurisdiction. -No Jurisdiction in Admiralty over Contracts to build Vessels, or to supply Steam-engines, or to enforce Mortgages, or over Accounts between Part-owners (excepting as an Incident), or over Trusts or Equitable Titles, or to decree Specific Performance, or over Set-offs. Sources of the Admiralty Jurisprudence. - In what Sense the Admiralty is a Court of Equity. - The General Maritime Law, how adopted. Acts of Congress make Part of the Admiralty Law. Limitations of Actions. - Modes of Proof and Rules of Evidence. - Sources of the Law of Prize. — Evi - dence in Prize Causes. Further Proof. - Pleadings in Admi IN the last Lecture, gentlemen, I had traversed, in part, the ground of the admiralty jurisdiction of the District Courts of the United States. I had mentioned the different contracts over which they have jurisdiction, and had advanced somewhat beyond that to cases which depended, not upon admiralty contracts, but still upon the nature of the subject-matter, such as salvage and one or two other subjects to which you will remember I ad verted at the close of the last Lecture. I now continue that enumeration. There are two kinds of action concerning the title and the right of possession of vessels, called petitory and possessory actions. Petitory actions are suits to try the legal title to a vessel, or some part of it; and possessory suits are suits to determine who shall have possession of a vessel, or which part-owners shall have possession of a vessel, for the purpose of employing it. Over both these subjects, admiralty in the United States has jurisdiction. This was decided in the case of Ward v. Peck, 18 Howard, 267. Concerning petitory actions it is unnecessary to say more than to repeat what I have already said, that the purpose of the action is to try the legal title to a vessel, or some part of it. Possessory suits, perhaps, require further observation. As it was said very long ago, vessels are built to plough the seas, not to lie by the walls; and accordingly courts of admiralty take jurisdiction of disputes between part-owners, when they are unable to agree on the mode in which their vessels shall be employed. The court will always assign to the majority the right to dictate the adventure upon which the vessel shall sail, if the majority agree and desire to employ the vessel on any particular adventure; but it will require the majority to give security to the minority for the return of the vessel in like good order and condition as when the adventure was begun. On the giving of such security, the court makes a decree allowing the majority of the part-owners to employ the vessel in the adventure in which they desire to employ it. If the majority do not desire to employ the vessel in any adventure, but the minority do, the court will assign to the minority the right so to employ the vessel on similar terms, to wit, security to return the ship in safety, or make compensation for its loss; but in either of these cases, the ship is employed on account either of the majority, in the first instance, or of the minority, in the second instance, and the other part-owners can receive no compensation for their interest or the use of their interest in the vessel. It is considered simply as an adventure of those who thus employ the vessel, and the profits or the loss are for their account. You will find this subject very much discussed and most of these principles stated in a case in 11 Peters, 175.1 By the common law, the liability of owners of vessels is limited only by the just claims either of the shippers of merchandise or of those who have suffered from a tort of the master and mariners. By the ancient maritime law, it was otherwise, and the ship-owner could always discharge himself from 1 [The Steamboat Orleans v. Phœbus. The court never directs a sale in any dispute between part-owners. Ibid.] liability by surrendering his interest in the vessel and freight. That principle of the ancient maritime law of the world was enacted by Congress under the act of March 3, 1851, which you will find explained in the case of The Norwich Company v. Wright, 13 Wallace, 104, where it was held by the court, that, under this act of Congress, enabling the ship-owner to surrender his interest in the vessel and freight, (I think that was a case of collision, but it would be applicable in any case where shipowners were liable for damages,) the admiralty court had jurisdiction to receive such surrender, and appoint trustees to take possession of the subjectmatter, the vessel or freight, to turn it into money, bring the money into court, and the court would then distribute it amongst those entitled to it. And in the same case it is, perhaps I should not say decided, but very clearly intimated, that if the ship is entirely lost, and there is no freight which can be attached by the admiralty court, then the liability of the ship-owner is at an end, it being considered that his liability is only coextensive with his interest in the vessel and freight. This, you perceive, forms a separate subject of admiralty jurisdiction, and I have mentioned it as such.1 1 [The provisions of the act of 1851 are re-enacted in Revised Statutes, §§ 4282-4286. But this law does not release the shipowner from the payment of full costs, if he appears and makes defence. The Wanata, 5 Otto, 600.] I come now to a different class of cases under this jurisdiction, namely, maritime torts, and, as I mentioned in the last Lecture, the jurisdiction over torts or wrongs depends on the locality where they are committed. If they are committed on the high seas, or within any navigable waters of the United States, that is, the great lakes or navigable rivers, then they are within the jurisdiction of the admiralty. For instance, personal assaults and batteries, if committed in either of the localities to which I have just referred, are within the admiralty jurisdiction; but it is necessary, in the case of personal assaults, that the suit should be in personam; that is, against the person who committed the assault, in contradistinction to being in rem, as it may be in cases of other torts which I shall now proceed to enumerate. One of them is collisions between two vessels, arising either from neglect of one of them, or from the contributory neglect of both; and in either of these cases the admiralty has jurisdiction. These, however, are cases of proceedings in rem, as well as in personam. A collision case is not necessarily in rem; it may be brought against the owner for the neglect or fault of his servants, that is, the master and crew. In that case, as I have just explained, the liability of the owner is limited to his interest in the vessel and freight, and therefore, although, technically speaking, there is jurisdiction in per |