A Defense Of The Rule Of The Admiralty Court In Cases Of Collision Between Ships In A Letter To The Right Honourable Lord Selborne C C

Excerpt from A Defense of the Rule of the Admiralty Court in Cases of Collision Between Ships: In a Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Selborne, &C. &C My Lord, The very kind manner, in which you were pleased to receive the few observations which I lately addressed to you on the subject of the Admiralty Rule in cases of Collision between Ships, encourages me to lay before you, at somewhat greater length, the reasons which have led mo to think that the Admiralty Rule should be preferred to the Common Law Rule in these cases. I am the more induced to do so, as it would seem from your Lordship's letter that the question is still open to consideration; and I doubt not that discussion will, as your Lordship observes, "lead to a sound conclusion in the end." Your Lordship, on bringing in your Bill for the reform of the Judicature, is reported in the "Times" of the 14th ultimo to have expressed yourself as follows: - "In respect of collisions at sea, it is proposed to do away with a rule which now holds good in the Court of Admiralty, and to adopt in its stead the rule of Common Law, as being more applicable to the general principle of contributory fraud or contributory negligence. The rule of law is, that if the plain-"tiff is in the wrong he cannot recover from the Defendant, and if the Defendant is in the wrong he cannot recover from the plaintiff. But what the Court of Admiralty does is this: If two ships run into each other, and both go to the bottom, as I understand the practice, the Court of Admiralty adds the value of both ships, and then divides the total between the two parties; so that if I were the owner of a ship worth only 10,000l. and one of your Lordships was the owner of one worth 50,000l., you see how well I should fare in comparison with the owner of the better ship if both vessels went down after a collision." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.