PREFACE.

THE following reports of Admiralty cases are published from no other motive, than that of adding to the store of decisions upon national law; which are, as yet, by no means too numerous, and which in these times of lasting warfare, can never come amiss to the profession. It may appear presumptuous in the advocate of a provincial Bar to engage in an undertaking of this sort, when similar publications are daily occupying the abler talents of the mother country, among the important records of high and superior tribunals. But as the Vice-Admiralty courts of the colonies, since the forty-first year of his present Majesty's reign, have been placed upon a truly in

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dependent and respectable footing, and are now filled by men of professional distinction from the parent state; their judgments are become interesting and valuable, not only to the practitioners of their several courts, but, the reporter humbly conceives, to the profession at large within the British dominions.

The court, in which these decisions were given, was established upon its present basis in the year 1801. The irregularities which had prevailed in the Vice-Admiralty courts having given occasion for complaint, both at home and abroad, at length drew the attention of His Majesty's Ministers, and of the Legislature. It was thought proper, by lessening their number, by extending their jurisdiction, and, by increasing the salaries of the judges, to give them greater consequence and dignity, and to induce gentlemen acquainted with the law, and the practice of the courts in England, and, particularly, some of the advocates of the civil law, to accept of these judicial offices. With this view, His Majesty, by a letter of Lord Grenville, dated the 22d day of January, 1801, directed the Lords

Commissioners of the Admiralty, to revoke the prize commissions which had been granted to the Vice-Admiralty Courts in the West Indies, and in the colonies upon the American continent, except Jamaica and Martinico. An act of parliament was then passed, in July 1801, (41 Geo. III. cap. 96.) by which " each and every of the Vice-Admiralty Courts established in any two of the islands in the West Indies, and at Halifax in America, were impowered to issue their process to any other of His Majesty's colonies or territories in the West Indies or America, including therein the Bahama's and Bermuda islands, as if such court was established in the island, colony, or territory, within which its functions were to be exercised." His Majesty was authorised to fix salaries for the Judges, not exceeding the sum of Two Thousand Pounds per annum for each Judge, and it was then enacted, "that the profits and emoluments of the said Judges should in no case exceed Two Thousand Pounds each in any one year, over and above their salary." Martinique having been given up at the peace in 1801, a Vice-Admiralty

Court was erected at Barbaboes in lieu of it. By another act (43 Geo. III. chap. 160.) in 1803, provision was made for the Judges of Vice-Admiralty Courts to be established in the Bahama and Bermuda islands, and at Malta.

In August 1801, Alexander Croke, LL. D. an advocate of the civil law, and a barrister at law, had the honour of being offered, without solicitation, 'the first appointment upon this new establishment, with the choice of his station; in which he preferred the severe, yet healthy air of Nova Scotia, to the luxuriant but hazardous climate of the West Indies, and has presided in it ever since that period.

During this time, and for many previous years, the Author of these Reports has been unremittingly engaged in the practice of that court. This practice. has afforded him the op portunity of occasionally taking notes of some of the principal cases. The arguments are not detailed to the extent in which they took place, but the judgments are reported at length, and with strict accuracy as to the chief grounds and substance of them. For this sa