PREFACE. THE Compilation of this Treatise on the Jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty has been executed with the idea that some labour devoted to that subject exclusively might be useful to the profession. The assertion, that at the present day there is no work on Admiralty jurisdiction of practical utility, is one which is neither disrespectful to the labours of those who, in earlier times, devoted their talents to the subject, nor, when we consider the state of that jurisdiction as altered and revised by recent enactments of the Legislature, is it one which is liable to contradiction. It is a subject of some importance; for, although it is true that in many cases which will be specified the courts of Common Law have a jurisdiction concurrent with that court, in so many instances it happens that a full remedy might have been obtained by the more summary and more secure proceeding of the Court of Admiralty, whilst that in the courts of Common Law has been worse than inadequate to the relief demanded. The necessity of a work of this title would appear to exist as much now as when this jurisdiction was less settled, its limits less ascertained, and consequently the more liable to controversy. To supply this deficiency, to point out the limits now assigned to that jurisdiction, and |