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552. The magnificent Armada is displayed (29th July, 1588) to the English coast. Tower after tower, galley after galley, in seven long miles of circuit, 130 huge vessels heave in sight. It is not a numerous, but it is a mighty expedition. It moves in unprecedented pomp. The Duke of Medina Sidonia is its admiral, of the greatest of the magnates of Spain. The Vicar-General of the Holy Inquisition is its high-priest, attended by 290 monks. Its decks are resounding with martial music, and trodden by 30,000 men; its sides bristle with 3165 cannon. Each great galeas with 300 rowers sweeps the wave. Their lofty sterns and prows are glowing and glittering with vermilion and gold. Their sails are expanded, their gorgeous standards and streamers are floating in the wind. The largest will carry 1200, the smallest 300 tons.

553. The invincible Armada approaches. Darkness closes on the scene. A thousand beacons are blazing along the English hills. Forth sail the royal ships of England. Their numbers are few. A noble is their admiral, but the Corsairs are their captains, the terrible sons of the sea. Forth speed the rovers of Plymouth; forth speed the gallants of Fowey, the cock-boats, the shallops, all the merchant craft; the nobles and the gentry are among the sailors, undisciplined volunteers. The eagles and the hawks are on the banquet; they have snuffed the carnage of Spain. They who have not already won them, this day shall win their spurs.

554. The wind freshens; on drifts before it the cumbrous cavalcade, jostling, crashing, crushing upon each other; the unwieldy vessels stumble along the sea, day after day, shattered, riddled, sunk, insulted, attacked, unable to attack. They expand their great line off Calais, waiting in vain. for the ships of Farnese, in battle array. The wind is. rising; in the darkness the waves are illumined, fire-ships are drifting upon them; crowding together in confusion, stranded, disabled, the unmanageable expedition is again driving before the wind, day after day pursued, battered, and persecuted along a dangerous coast. The provisions and

shot of the victors are expended; but they, still menacing, pursue. The storm rolls down on the devoted Armada. Its fragments are strewn on the billows; its brave soldiers lie rotting on the rocky realms of the Seakings and Yarls. Of 135 proud vessels, but 53 return to the seaports of Spain.

555. The United Provinces are free. They (1594-95) have sent forth their first expeditions in search of India and Cathay. Beyond the North Cape the passage is bound with impenetrable ice. But the Hollanders have resumed their ancient place upon the ocean.

556. The European fancy is enchanted with Elysian fields, and El Dorados in the South, and the West, and the East. The waters swarm with vessels of commerce, of discovery, and of the buccaneer; the caravals of Portugal and the carraks of Spain are freighted with silks and spices, and loaded with the precious ores; the frigates of England and the galleys of Holland rob the robber, and despoil the spoiler of his prey.

557. The ancient models, and those of the Middle Ages, are abandoned; Europe is building more manageable ships. The Sovereign of the Seas is first of the British force. The ancient castles are abated; she is fit to encounter the waves. Her length is 232 feet, her breadth 48, her height to the top of her lantern 76; on her three decks, her half-deck, her quarter-deck, her forecastle, and chase, she carries 128 culverins, demiculverins, and all manner of guns. At length navies grew up, and sovereigns became able to repress buc

caneers.

558. The vessels of commerce replace the rovers, and the nations of Europe are visiting every sea. Britain, late in the career of discovery, was the fastest in the race. The greatest and best of discoverers was the British skipper Cook. The vast Atalantis is the seat of mighty nations. The teeming regions of India, and the broad islands of the Southern seas, are provinces of the British realm. The map of the world is unfolded; our tale of discovery is told.

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146

RIGHTS AND LAWS OF NAVIGATION.

CHAPTER I.

LAWS WHICH REGULATE THE WATERS.

We have now to address ourselves to the rights and reciprocal duties of those who traverse the waters, the rights and duties of the mariner and his ship.

559. IMPERSONATION OF THE SHIP.-The commander and the crew, and those who are interested in her and her freight, and to some extent her cargo, may be impersonated in the ship.

"She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife."-Corsair. For the due consideration of her rights, and the laws by which she is bound, we must have regard, first, to the area on which she is sailing; and, secondly, to the nation to which she belongs. In the open sea she is a citizen of the world, in her national waters she is a subject of her own realm; but even on the open sea she cannot throw off her allegiance.

560. The ship, as we have said, is an impersonation. The individuals on board her are, in some respects, amenable for their conduct to the laws of their own nation,-as for treason, desertion, and other crimes; but we shall have occasion hereafter to consider to what extent they can be reached by those laws while they are on board the ship of another state. With respect to navigation, the ship is an individual subject of the nation whose flag she bears, and whose warrant she carries for her conduct; she is part of the land to which she belongs, and of that land the master and crew, whatever may be their proper country, are temporary denizens; to

the laws of that land all her inhabitants are amenable, and by those laws they are all protected.

561. THE AREA of the waters, as we have already seen, is divided into open or high sea, waters of communication, and national waters. We shall have to describe these divi

sions more in detail.

562. ON THE OPEN sea all ships are governed by the law of Nature, and by the law maritime or law of the sea, a department of the supreme law of nations.

563. THE LAW OF NATURE is, in some respects, distinct from the law of nations; it, like moral obligations, affects acts, as to which the law of nations is silent, and as to which the municipal laws of different countries may be silent, or contain unaccordant provisions. So far as the subject of this work is involved, it applies chiefly to maritime slave-trade, and some passages in the law of war; we therefore postpone its consideration.

564. THE MARITIME LAW is the law of the open sea, but its general provisions are affected by the exceptional state of war, which has introduced into it a chapter, which we shall separately exhibit as the Maritime Law of War.

565. Certain principles may be enunciated as equally applicable to all its provisions, to the general maritime law and to the law of war-indeed, to the whole code of the law of nations, the universal law.

566. All nations must be regarded as one great commonwealth, governed by this general system of law.

Every nation must be regarded as possessing equal rights, equal honour, equal wisdom, and equal power to assert and maintain her rights and the rights of her subjects.

The violation of any ordinance of the law of nations, as to one nation, or the subjects of one nation, must be regarded as an offence against the law of all nations; and as entitling all, or as many of the nations as feel affronted, to chastise the offender and vindicate the law.

567. The law of nations is the supreme law; it constitutes

a part of the law of every country. The subjects of every country are bound by it, whether on the open sea, in their own country, or in any foreign land, in their conduct, contracts, and social relations to all their fellow-creatures, whether of a different country or their own.

568. No legislature of one or more nations can alter the law of nations, or make a valid ordinance to bind any, except their own subjects, in contravention of the maritime or any other department of this supreme law, either upon the open sea or in the territories of any other state.

569. Any nation affected by such attempted alteration has a right to reparation for any injury which she or her subjects may thereby sustain.

570. It must however be observed, that neither the subjects nor even the judicial tribunals of any country can refuse to obey or enforce the clearly expressed law or ordination of its legislature, although in contravention of this supreme law.

571. The judges of each country must assume that its legislature does not intend to legislate for the government of the territories of other countries, or the subjects of other countries within foreign territories, or on the common area of the open sea, and therefore that its ordinances do not affect them; but such assumption must yield to the incontrovertible language of the law.

572. Judges, in the exercise of their functions, cannot assume the office of legislation, far less can they assume the correction of the laws which the legislature of their country has ordained.

573. If the legislature has usurped the office of enacting laws to govern foreigners in their mutual relations on the open sea, or even in the dominions of their own states, the judge can act only as the minister of the law, he cannot hold it void or oppressive; he is the officer for the construction and administration, and not for the abolition or modification of the positive law; when the mandate is express, he must perform it. (See Zollverein; Johannes; Annapolis; Cope v. Doherty.)

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