308 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S Statutes of this century restored to the court of Admiralty some parts of the jurisdiction of which the Common Law Courts had deprived it. They restored also its status of a court of record, and gave to the judge of the Admiralty many of the powers possessed by the judges of the superior Courts of Common Law. ' Appeals from the court of Admiralty lay originally to the king in Chancery. This is clear from a statute of ISSS.-^ The king on each occasion appointed judices delegati to hear the appeal. In the Tudor period these Delegates were ci- vilians. In later times a judge of one of the Common Law Courts was associated with them. In 1563 it was enacted that their decision should be final. ^ We get the records of the Court of Delegates from the beginning of the 17th century. We have seen that in 1832 the jurisdiction of the Delegates was transferred to the Council, and that in 1833 the Judicial Committee of the Council was formed to hear such appeals.* (6) The jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty. In the 14th and 15th centuries the jurisdiction of the Admiralty is somewhat wide and vague. It comprises the ordinary criminal and civil jurisdiction of later days,^ the Prize jurisdiction,^ and the jurisdiction over wreck, and the other droits of the crown or the Admiral." The procedure of the court was becoming fixed upon the models rather of the civil than of the common law. ® Its jurisdiction was be- ginning to encroach upon the rights of those seaport towns which possessed Admiralty jurisdiction.^ For these reasons the court aroused a Parliamentary opposition similar in kind i?4 Vict. c. 10 §§ 14, 17, 23, 24; below.
- 25 Henry viii c. 19 § 4. For earlier commissions to hear appeals see
Select Pleas of the Admiralty ii lix-lxii. » 8 Eliza, c. 5. This was not necessarily so before, Select Pleas of the Admiralty i. 18-20. Above. " Select Pleas of the Admiralty i xlvi-liv.
- Ibid xli, xlii; Rhymer, Foedera, vi 14, 15.
- Ibid xliv, xlv; ibid ii xxv, xxvi.
« Black Book of the Admiralty (R. S.) i 178-220. » R. P. iii 322 (17 Rich. IT. n. 49) the towns of Bristol, Bridgewater, Exeter, Barnstaple and Wells complain of the encroachments, errors, and delays of the court. Appeals, they say, have been pending 3 years and more, " pur diverse delaies de la ley de Civill, et subtill ymagination de les parties pleintiffs." Cf. Sampson v. Curteys (Select Pleas of the Admiralty i 1) and Gernesey v. Henton (ibid 17) which bear out the statements in the petition.
