consent of the maritime codes and juridical commentaries of other European nations.

Moreover, by this regard to foreign maritime jurisprudence, the general policy is sustained in the particular application of a law which contemplates foreign intercourse by sea as an object of the traffic it controls,-at once conservative of British property, and confirmatory of foreign rights that have been acquired under its sanction. The municipal law, contemplating no such object, but framed for the citizen, and occupied solely with the relations that multiply within the same independent commonwealth, is hostile to foreign intercourse; and consequently under a conflict with other laws of that nature it needs must resort to the Comity of Nations, not for a governing principle, but for a temporary concession that leaves these conflicting laws as hostile as before. The law maritime expressly with a view to intercourse with other nations, commissions and announces the agent through whom it is to be conducted, and governs that intercourse when it takes place. The validity of his acts is dependent upon its sanction; and the foreigner is secure of no advantage obtained in prejudice of the Master's public authority.

I am aware that the view, here touched upon and elsewhere fully considered, is contrary to at least one decision of the present very learned judge of the Admiralty Court, and

that it is opposed to another decision, at variance with the former, which has since been pronounced by the Court of Exchequer Chamber. I am also obliged to acknowledge two other opponents, one of them no less a personage on questions in general jurisprudence than the late revered Mr. Justice Story of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the other, who had the merit of moving this question, Mr. Brodie, the learned editor of Stair's Institutions of the Law of Scotland.

It is now advanced, as it was originally adopted, in opposition to the decision of the venerable and learned judge of the Admiralty Court, after much anxious reflection and research, and only upon mature consideration of the principles and policy of the law itself and of the foreign and English authorities bearing upon the question. I was not yet committed to the press when the Court of Exchequer Chamber disapproved of Dr. Lushington's decision, and gave their high sanction to a different principle,—a principle at variance, I think, with the policy of any national maritime law, and calculated, when applied to maritime traffic, to alarm the merchant and the ship-owner for the safety of his property. Using that event as an occasion for revising the whole of my previous investigations, and endeavouring at the same time to push them into new territory, with, if possible, a keener solicitude than before, I was in the end conducted anew to

my former conclusion as the only legitimate result upon the

whole inquiry.*

In support of it I have, it seems to me, the authority of the English Court of Admiralty in a uniform series of decisions for two centuries,-the authority of other national codes of maritime law in provisions which may be appealed to as discriminative tests,—and the authority of foreign commentaries to this extent at least that I have not mistaken the object of these provisions as intended to be binding on aliens in their own country. Indeed it appears to enter essentially into the conception of a national maritime law, which the opposite opinion would in effect repeal for any other than merely municipal purposes.

Upon the question affecting equitable claims to shipproperty, whether title of that nature can be judicially recognised in derogation of the title on the register, the recent decision of Vice-Chancellor Wood, in favour of the negative, is to be found in the last chapter of this treatise. Three times the question in a different form, successively emerged under my hand in the course of the first chapter; and there, perceiving upon repeated consideration that it

See in the Index of Subjects under the heading "Cases Subject of Special Com. ment," Cammell v. Sewell, and, The Eliza Cornish.

See a recent provision in our Statutory Maritime Code which makes a certain observance of our registry law by a foreigner in his own country a condition of his acquiring property in a British registered ship sold to him in virtue of a certificate of sale; 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104, § 81, no. 11.

must ultimately be determined by the view entertained of the policy of the statute, I have declined, amidst the obscurity that conceals the intention of the legislature, and in the presence of important modifications of the registry law, to hazard an opinion upon that policy contrary to the general impression that equitable titles were to be recognised. The propriety of this caution is since vindicated by the difficulty acknowledged at every step in his investigation of the subject by the eminent judge referred to, at the same time that in his construction of the statutory provisions bearing upon it, the view which I ventured to submit has received the most gratifying confirmation. The subject, however, is not yet so free from doubt, nor the statute so unfavourable to a different construction, that I should wish now to put it otherwise than as it is left in the first chapter taken in combination with the decision given in the last.

This treatise was originally intended, upon the suggestion of a friend, to have been founded on the fourth edition of Abbott on Shipping, the last of that work for which its eminent author held himself responsible. Under this impression the announcement of it by my publisher appeared; and I availed myself of assistance from that edition to the extent of fifty pages and notes, greatly altered, and distributed in various parts of this volume. But at an early stage of my progress, I entirely abandoned that intention,

believing that I could treat the subject more satisfactorily upon a plan altogether my own, than by endeavouring to recast Abbott's work with a different arrangement. To do this, indeed, would have destroyed the identity of that treatise without compensating any one by the value of the result.

For the present work, therefore, I am entirely responsible. The plan upon which it is founded has been explained; and for details the reader may consult a full analysis at the head of each chapter, and a careful index of subjects at the end of the volume. In treating of the Master I have considered his authority and duties as an Agent of the owners, apart from his authority and duties on board as a Master Mariner. In that, I hope to be justified in the judgment of the profession and by the convenience of those who consult the work; but for a large section of his duties which essentially enter into the performance of certain contracts, and could not conveniently be considered apart, I must refer to the various Chapters on Passengers and Affreightment.

The undertaking which I am now concluding was entered upon with anxious thought. It involved a wide range of inquiry and considerable variety of subject; and much of the ground to be occupied was entirely new. I dare not assume that no error has been made in the course of performance, and that nothing has been omitted of all that was implied in my