one of the parties, is appealed against. This takes us to the first step upwardsthe courts of the archdeacons and others in every diocese, where the case is again heard, decided, and appealed against. Of course poor men who cannot afford to go on appealing against what they may believe to be an unjust decision, may stop where they please. Far is it, we are sure, from the minds of all parties concerned to wish any poor man to involve himself in expenses that he cannot pay. Next we ascend to the Consistorial Courts, one in each diocese, where the whole. process of hearing, deciding, and appealing from, proceeds with delightful regularity and steadiness of purpose. The third step is the Chancellor's Court;the fourth the metropolitan, say the Court of Arches, and here at least one would suppose there would be a final pause. By no means, if the losing party have still hopes of a different decision, or hopes of his adversary's purse or patience failing. An appeal still lies from the Court of Arches to the Privy Council at present, formerly to the Court of Delegates at Doctors' Commons, now abolished. That we may not be supposed to have exaggerated-here are two illustrations: "There was a case," says Dr. Nicholls, "in which the cause had originally commenced in the Archdeacon's Court at Totness, and thence there had been an appeal to the Court at Exeter, thence to the Arches, and thence to the Delegates; after all, the question at issue having been simply, which of two persons had the right of hanging his hat on a particular peg." The other is of a sadder cast, and calculated to arouse a just indignation. Our authority is Mr. S. W. Sweet,* who states-" In one instance, many years since, a suit was instituted, which I thought produced a great deal of inconvenience and distress it was the case of a person of the name of Russell, whose wife was supposed to have had her character impugned at Yarmouth by a Mr. Bentham. He had no remedy at law for the attack upon the lady's character, and a suit for defamation was instituted in the Commons. It was supposed the suit would be attended with very little expense, but I believe in the end it greatly contributed to ruin the party who instituted it; I think he said his proctor's bill would be 700l. It went through several courts, and ultimately, I believe [according the decision or agreement] each party paid his own costs." It appears from the evidence subsequently given by the proctor, that he very humanely declined pressing for payment, and never was paid; and yet the case, through the continued anxiety and loss of time incurred for six or seven years (for the suit lasted that time), mainly contributed, it appears, to the party's ruin. : Abuses of this kind, with a host of others, it is the object of the bill before Parliament, introduced by Dr. Nicholl, to sweep away; and a most gratifying evidence of the change that has come over the episcopal spirit is to be found in the fact, that, effectually as it accomplishes these purposes, great as the sacrifice thereby made by some of the heads of the Church (one sinecure place, in the gift of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that is to be abolished, is worth 9000l. a year), it is to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of 1832, among whom were the said Archbishop and six Bishops, that we owe the excellent measure of reform we are about to describe. But we must first notice, that, in addition to the evils of a multiplicity of appeals, and those arising from the variety of cases before mentioned in which the Church has temporal jurisdiction, and is in consequence frequently made the instrument of petty malice and bad feeling, there is one evil Report on Eccles. Courts, p. 17. of still greater magnitude than either :-owing to the number of minor courts in which a will may be proved, it is almost impossible to know where to look for any but a very recent one. And now for the remedy. Dr. Nicholl proposes to divide the exclusively spiritual matters-such as the correction of clerks, and Church discipline generally-from those which are exclusively temporal, or of a mixed nature; the former to be left to the Bishops in their diocesan courts (all minor courts being abolished), with appeals, first to the Archbishop, and subsequently to the Privy Council,-thus "recognising, even in ecclesiastical matters, the principle, that over all causes .... her Majesty's was, in these her dominions, supreme authority;" and the latter to be handed over to a new court, to be called her Majesty's Court of Arches, with a Judge called, as at present, the Dean of the Arches, but appointed by the Queen, like the other Judges, instead of by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The advocates and proctors will of course practise in such new Court, as they do now in the old. The Court is to have no power to pronounce spiritual censures, consequently all those very peculiar causes before enumerated will be abolished, except such as may still be commenced in this Court, and in it only, with the object of asserting or of ascertaining a civil right. Tithe, and all matters pertaining thereto, are transferred to the jurisdiction of the general Courts of Law at Westminster. Lastly, the new Court will have the sole jurisdiction over all testamentary causes throughout the country, both as a court of trial for causes arising out of such matters, and as a Court of Registry for the entire kingdom, as all wills are to be proved in it, all administrations granted by it. This most important and valuable reform is enhanced by the care with which the inconveniences that might have attached to such a system have been anticipated and prevented. The present registry in every diocese is to be henceforth a branch registry of the Court of Arches, where all wills of persons dying possessed of personal property below 3001. may be proved, to save the expense and inconvenience attending journeys to London; and then the whole system is perfected by the cross transmission of all copies of wills proved-on the one hand, from each registry to the Court of Arches; on the other, from the Court of Arches (of wills below 3007.) to each registry so that at the branches there will be a complete registry for small wills, and at the chief Court for wills of every class. The country proctors are probably the only persons injured by the measure, and that injury is lessened by the opening of the new London Court to such of them as may think proper to practise there for the future. In the procedure of this Court great improvements are to be introduced: riva voce evidence may be received in Court, at the discretion of the Judge; and, in certain cases, there may be a trial by jury. Such is a brief outline of the measure now before Parliament. There is one other Court of Doctors' Commons yet to be mentioned-the High Court of Admiralty. How this came to be joined to the Ecclesiastical Courts we do not find anywhere stated, but it arose most probably from the circumstances before pointed out-the connection between the civil and canon laws as the Arches and other Courts have been chiefly governed by the one, so has the Admiralty by the other. Its jurisdiction is divided into two parts-that of the Instance Court, and that of the Prize Court. The Prize Court evidently applies but to a state of war, when all naval captures pass through it. Its " end," says Lord Mansfield, in one of his tersest passages," is to suspend the property till condemnation; to punish every sort of misbehaviour in the captors; to restore instantly, if, upon the most summary examination, there does not appear sufficient ground; to condemn finally, if the goods really arc prize, against everybody, giving everybody a fair opportunity of being heard."* The Instance Court has a criminal and civil jurisdiction. To the former belong piracy, and other indictable offences committed on the high seas, which are now tried at the Old Bailey; to the latter, all the cases which form the ordinary business of the Court, such as suits arising from ships running foul of each other, disputes about seamen's wages, bottomry, and salvage-that is, the allowance due to those who have saved or recovered ships, or property in ships, from maritime dangers. The position of the Judge of the Admiralty is a peculiar one: in peace having little to do—in war, all but overwhelmed: it is also in the highest degree onerous. Peace or war may continually depend upon his decisions in matters where foreign nations are concerned; for instance, "in cases of embargoes, and the provisional detention of vessels: in such cases an incautious decision might involve the country in war." Nay, at the present moment that very question is in agitation (and may again come before the Court through some sudden, possibly accidental, circumstance), which formed so important a feature in the last war with Americathe right of search; for, unfortunately, Sir John Nicholl's remark, that "the decisions of the great mind (Lord Stowell's) at the head of the Admiralty Court at that time have pretty much settled these questions to the satisfaction of the whole world," appears just now to be anything but correct. Yet if any one mind in such a position could have settled that or any still weightier question, it would have been the admirable Judge referred to, who sat in this Court through the most eventful period of the last great war, in the course of which he had to deal with almost every question of international law; but to him might be applied Shakspere's well-known passage on Henry V. :— "Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, And the proof of it is the statement made by Sir Herbert Jenner, and other distinguished persons, in the highest degree calculated to form a correct opinion, that Lord Stowell's decisions at that period have since formed a code of international law, almost universally recognised. The amount of his labours was no less remarkable than its character. In one year (1806) he pronounced 2206 decrees. It can be hardly expected that to such praise there should be anything remarkable to add, and yet there is. Lord Stowell's style is a study not alone for his legal brethren of all classes, many of whom, it must be acknowledged, sadly need such a proof of the possibility of being at once learned and intelligible, but for all who can enjoy genuine and racy English. Looking over Haggart's reports of his decisions, we were struck by the case he gives of the ship Minerva;' and though many might be found better calculated to illustrate the qualities of Lord Stowell's matter and manner, it is not without value in those points, as well as being in itself interesting. Sailors are "the favourites of the law," says Lord * Douglas's Reports, p. 572. Sir Herbert Jenner's Evidence. Report on Admiralty Courts, 1833, p. 36. Report, 1833, p. 20. Stowell, in the judgment we are about to quote, " on account of their imbecility, and placed particularly under its protection:" the judgment in the Minerva' suit is a practical exemplification of this rule. It appears "the crew of the Minerva' had been engaged on a contract to go from London to New South Wales, and India, or elsewhere, and to return to a port in Europe." The words marked in Italics were said by the crew to have been subsequently added, who, in consequence, eventually left the vessel, and on their return were refused the wages they conceived themselves entitled to. The rest of their curious history Lord Stowell himself relates:-"Now upon this balance of evidence, as I have intimated, I strongly incline to hold, that these words did not compose any part of the text of the original contract; but if they did, I have no hesitation in asserting, that they are not to be taken in that indefinite latitude in which they are expressed: they are no description of a voyage; they are an unlimited description of the navigable globe; and are not to be admitted as a universal alibi for the whole world, including the most remote and even pestilential shores, indefinite otherwise both in space and time: they must receive a reasonable construction-a construction which I readily admit must be, to a certain extent, conformable to the necessities of commerce; for I hope that few men's minds are more remote than mine from a wish to encourage any wayward opposition in seamen to those necessities, or to the fair and indispensable indulgence which such necessities require; for no class of men is more interested in supporting the maritime commerce of the country than these persons themselves: but the entire disadvantage must not be thrown upon them; the owners must make their sacrifices as well as the mariners. . . . . I come now to the evidence of other material facts. On landing the cargo at Port Jackson, the crew, as I have already observed, expressed their extreme disappointment at the change made in their destination [which they had just learned], in breach of the articles which they had subscribed. They are threatened by the Captain, who is certainly a person of lofty prerogative notions, who claims the right to carry them, and says he can and will carry them, wherever he pleases, even to hell itself, a very favourite place of consignment in his judgment. The only choice presented to these men was between a prison and a continuance in the ship; for such is the law and justice of that country, that it seems no other option is allowed to a seaman: whether he quit his ship for a just cause or none at all—that is never subject of inquiry. In the choice of things, they elect the ship, reserving to themselves, as they had an undoubted right to do, their demand for legal redress in the justice of their country, for such it appears was the general theme of conversation amongst them. They remained on board, performing their duty; and even if this had not been a compelled preference, it would not have deprived them of that resort. The articles were violated and remained so, though they elected, under all circumstances, to remain in the ship under the forced deviation. A voyage was commenced upon, a course of experiments to procure a cargo. From Port Jackson they proceeded in search of a cargo to New Zealand, where not a man ventured to land for fear of being made a meal's meat of by the cannibal inhabitants, as they were represented to be. From hence they take an enormous flight to Valparaiso, in the South Seas, where they take on board what the Master will not allow to be a cargo, but only part of a cargo; and the ship then proceeds to Lima, where nothing is done, and thence a fresh flight to Otaheite, at neither of which places does this voyage of experiment afford any articles of cargo. From this last place the Master bends his course back to Sidney Cove, and after selling the partial cargo taken in at Valparaiso, and receiving payment for the same, they then procured a cargo, which they carried to Calcutta, for which place they ought to have proceeded originally. They landed the cargo, and were occupied in taking on board a cargo for England, the men all this time, with all apparent diligence and alacrity, discharging their duty. On two Sundays, days usually of repose and indulgence, they were employed; yet no necessity is shown for denying the usual remission. of labour. It is also stated, that on the third Sunday they had hoped to obtain the usual indulgence. On that morning, however, at a very early hour, a great quantity of hides having been brought to the ship, they set to work at five o'clock in the morning, to obtain the indulgence of going on shore in the afternoon, and finished their stowage of hides by one o'clock, and then sat down to dinner in that warm climate, solacing themselves with the prospect of obtaining the long-expected indulgence of going on shore; but instead, they were informed that they must go to work in the afternoon of the same day wherein they had worked so many hours, to stow the hides more completely, which they had put into the hold with so much labour during six hours of the morning. They requested the indulgence which they had promised themselves, upon the faith of the usual practice and of their meritorious exertions in the morning, and applied to the Captain personally and respectfully for that purpose; but received the usual answer of a refusal, expressed in the usual terms of a reference to the favourite place of consignment to which I have alluded. Upon this refusal of the Captain, who himself immediately afterwards proceeded to the shore, they followed his example. . . . . In the evening they stated their case to the Town Serjeant, including the great original grievance, of an entire defeazance of the ship's articles by the compelled ramble to New Zealand and the distant ports of the South Sea. The Magistrates issue a summons to the Captain to appear and answer to the complaint. After consultations both private and public with the Captain, the Magistrates appear to act upon the same principle of law as that which prevails at Sidney Cove-that when a seaman quits a ship, he is only to make his election between the ship and the House of Correction. The sailors unwillingly repair to their ship, but are absolutely refused admittance by order of the Captain, which amounts nearly to a dismissal, and they return to the shore, where they are committed by the magistrates to the House of Correction. for 25 days; at the end of that time they are taken in the police boat and put on board the ship, when they collect their clothes and hammocks, which they carry off with them to the shore. Unfounded and unsupported charges of having stolen the ship's hammocks are dismissed by the magistrates, as is likewise another equally unsupported charge of having neglected to clear the hawser, a duty which had never been imposed upon them. The mariners' case ends with their acceptance, after a month's interval, of stations on board another ship about to proceed for England, at nearly a double rate of wages to that which they would have been entitled to if they had continued on boad the Minerva.'" Our space will not allow us to transcribe any of the kindly and philosophical remarks with which the judgment is studded, we can only give the conclusion:-" Upon |