now, it is thought, be better effected, by requesting those who have not the advantage of possessing the Fifth Edition, to remember, that it contains no reference to any case of later date than the year 1827, and that the cases determined in the interval between that year, and the year 1818, when the Author succeeded Lord Ellenborough as Chief Justice of England, are but sparingly and briefly referred to in it.

The name by which the work is commonly known, is not the name given to it by Lord Tenterden, to whom its citation by any more comprehensive title than "The Law of Merchant Ships and Seamen," was-as the present Lord Tenterden, in giving me permission to edit the Sixth Edition, begged me to remember and make knownespecially distasteful.

In adding to the original plan, the chapters on the Conveyance of Passengers in Merchant Ships, on Collision, on Maritime Liens, and the greater part of those on the Conveyance of Merchandize in a general Ship, and on the Shipowner's Lien for Freight, I have been influenced by a desire not to overlay, and to disturb as little as possible, the Author's text. I have had the satisfaction of observing that learned writers, to whom, of late years, the profession has become indebted for very valuable, and, to a great extent, original treatises and compilations, on the Law of Shipping, have also considered the matters noticed in those chapters, deserving of special study and discussion.

Such, indeed, has been the accumulation of important cases relating to the law of which they treat, that an attempt to notice them adequately, under the primal divisions of the work, with any regard to perspicuity, and without altering its character from that of a Treatise to that of a Digest, must have been unsuccessful.

The lapse of sixty-four years since the original publica

tion of Lord Tenterden's Work, has produced a knowledge by the profession, of the doctrines expounded in some cases, which were set out at length by him, so familiar, as to excuse, I hope, the substitution by me in this Edition, of abridgments, for statements or transcripts of them.

It was found impossible to preserve more than a small portion of the chapters of the Fifth Edition, which consisted chiefly of Abstracts of Acts of Parliament relating to the Registration of Ships, to the Limitation of the Responsibility of Shipowners and Masters of Ships, to Pilotage, Salvage, and the Employment and Wages of Merchant Seamen, all which Acts have been repealed, and, in their main provisions, re-enacted, with great additions and alterations.

Those who are acquainted with the foreign Ordinances and with the works of the more eminent foreign writers on Maritime Law-the law of England, when not modified by statute or by established usage-are best able to appreciate the precision of expression, with which its principles, at a time when they had received but little illustration from cases decided in our Superior Courts, were enunciated and discussed in the small octavo volume, which was the first edition of this work. The exposition of them, as composed for that edition, will be found, word for word, in this edition and the intervening ones. What I have added to it has been drawn from the sources indicated by the Author in his Preface, or from reservoirs of learning and of argument, originally fed by them, and not less deep and pure.

That a work so excellent, and with us of such high authority, should not have found its way more extensively into the legal literature of foreign States, is somewhat remarkable. One translation only, in the Portuguese language, has come

to my notice. This is, in great part, attributable to a series of profound and exhaustive disquisitions by the French jurists, commencing before the first appearance of this work, and continued unto our own day, on every important point of the Law Maritime, and to the surpassing excellence of the Ordinance of Louis the Fourteenth, and of its corrected and improved edition, in the Code de Commerce.

Four editions of Lord Tenterden's Treatise, enriched with notices and discussions, which I have found most valuable, of decisions in the Courts of the United States, were published by Mr. Justice Story; and I have to thank Mr. J. C. Perkins, of the Massachusetts Bar, for an edition, by which the third of those prepared by me, has been recommended to the legal profession of his country.

The Statutes now in force relating to Merchant Ships and Seamen, and the Merchant Shipping Act, 1867, not yet in force, are printed in the Appendix. The more important provisions of them have been incorporated with the text of the Treatise, in the place of enactments relating to the same subjects, in Statutes which have been repealed.

The Appendix also contains the Forms sanctioned by the Board of Trade, under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, in most frequent use, and other Forms of practical utility.

5, SUSSEX PLACE,

HYDE PARK GARDENS,
OCTOBER, 1867.

PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

CONSIDERING the great importance of every branch of law relating to Maritime Commerce, it is a matter of surprise that no Treatise on the subjects discussed in the following sheets should have been written by any member of the profession of the law for a very long period of years. It is now more than a century since the first publication of the work of Molloy, the only English Lawyer who has written on these matters. During that period the law of the country has grown up with its commerce; many interesting points have been argued by able and eloquent Advocates, and decided by learned and enlightened Judges; and some very important regulations have been introduced by the Legislature: but very little of useful addition has been made to the collection of Molloy, either by the subsequent editors of his Treatise, or by the other authors who have written on the same topics. Yet, the absence of a general and established code of Maritime Law, which almost every other European nation possesses, seems to render a collection of the principal points of that law peculiarly necessary, both for English merchants and English lawyers. On the subject of Insurance, this has been already effected. In the present Treatise an attempt is made to supply the defect in some other branches. And in order to render the work as generally useful as the nature of it will allow, great

care has been taken to avoid the use of technical phrases, wherever the form and manner of legal proceedings are not the principal points of consideration. The reader, who is of the profession of the law, may, I fear, sometimes be disgusted at this; and at other times censure the awkward expressions substituted for the language to which his ear is familiar. The only excuse that can be offered for the latter fault, is the difficulty of expressing ideas to which the mind is habituated, in any other words than those to which we are accustomed: a difficulty, of which the conversation of all persons who are engaged in any art or science furnishes daily experience.

The Treatise now offered to the public is compiled, not only from the text-writers of our own Nation, and the reporters of the decisions of our own Courts, but also from the books of the Civil Law, and from such of the maritime laws of foreign nations, and the works of foreign writers, as I have been able to obtain a knowledge of. A few decisions of the House of Lords are quoted from the printed statements delivered by the contending parties, and the Journals of the House. Some judgments pronounced by English Judges are also introduced, which have not hitherto been made public; for the most valuable part of these I am indebted to Mr. Justice Lawrence, and particularly for the cases of Parish and Crawford, Appleby and Pollock, and Day and Searle; the case of Mackrell against Simond and Hankey was communicated to me by the late Mr. Justice Buller, who, when at the Bar, argued it on behalf of the defendants: the rest are cited from notes taken by myself or my professional friends. Indeed, I am indebted to my friends not only for assistance of this kind, but also for the loan of scarce books, the correction of some errors, and the suggestion of many valuable hints for the improvement of the work. Of the assistance thus