Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/1050

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II BROWN.
JACKSON v. MONRO [1779]

Scotland, and by several acts of parliament, particularly by the act 16th of the third parliament of Charles II. anno 1681, very ample and extensive powers were vested in that court, the Judge thereof being declared to be his Majesty's Lieutenant and Justice General upon the seas, and in all ports, harbours, or creeks of the same; and that court is declared by the act last mentioned, to have the sole privilege and jurisdiction in all maritime and seafaring causes, foreign and domestic, whether civil or criminal, whatsoever, within Scotland, and over all persons, as they are concerned in the same; and all other Judges are thereby prohibited to meddle with the decision of any of the said causes. That at the time of the Union, the family of Richmond and Lennox were hereditary Lord High Admirals of Scotland, by grant from King Charles II. and in the year 1702 the then Duke of Richmond did appoint James Graham, Esq. Judge of the High Court of Admiralty for life; and the office of Lord High Admiral being afterwards vested in the Crown, by a purchase made by her late Majesty Queen Anne, from the then Duke of Richmond, upon the death of the said James Graham, Esq. the present Judge Admiral was appointed Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in Scotland for life, by commission from his late Majesty King George II. under the great seal of Scotland, of date the 15th of January 1747. That by the 19th article of the Treaty of Union, several provisions are made for the preservation, and continuance of the Courts of Session, Justiciary, and Admiralty in Scotland, after the Union, with the same powers and jurisdictions which they respectively had before the Union; and a declaration is therein contained, that none of the courts in Westminster-Hall, nor any other court in England, shall have any jurisdiction whatever within Scotland; and accordingly it is by the said article provided and declared,

That all admiralty jurisdictions be under the Lord High Admiral, or Commissioners for the Admiralty of Great [416] Britain, for the time being; and that the Court of Admiralty, now established in Scotland, be continued; and that all reviews, reductions, or suspensions of the sentences in maritime cases, competent to the jurisdiction of that court, remain in the same manner after the Union, as now in Scotland, until the Parliament of Great Britain shall make such regulations and alterations as shall be judged expedient for the whole united kingdom; so as there be always continued in Scotland a Court of Admiralty, such as in England, for the determination of all maritime cases relating to private rights in Scotland, competent to the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court, subject nevertheless to such regulations and alterations as shall be thought proper to be made by the Parliament of Great Britain.

And it is further thereby provided,

that no causes in Scotland be cognoscible by the Court of Chancery, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, or any other Court in Westminster-Hall; and that the said Courts, or any other of the like nature, after the Union, shall have no power to cognosce, review, or alter the acts or sentences of the judicatures within Scotland, or stop the execution of the same.

That, previous to the Union, the two kingdoms of England and Scotland were independent of one another, as to their legislative powers, and as to the jurisdiction of their several courts; the courts of law in England had no jurisdiction within Scotland, and the courts of law in Scotland had no jurisdiction within England. That by the articles of the Union, the separate legislative powers were conjoined into one, which was the principal point in view but in no part of these articles is there any thing expressed or implied, tending to extend, limit, or abrogate the territorial jurisdiction of the courts then established in the respective kingdoms. That for obvious reasons, arising from the great majority of the Members of Parliament England would have, after the Union, to those to be chosen and sent by Scotland, it was thought proper to provide some degree of security for the continuance of the jurisdiction of the courts of justice in Scotland; for which purpose the aforesaid provisions were made in the said 19th article; and as to the courts in England, no provision is made in the articles as to them, that not being thought necessary for the above reason. Thus then the exclusive territorial jurisdictions of the Supreme Courts in Scotland, were not touched by the Union's taking place, and would have continued entire, had no provision been made relative thereto in the articles of Union; and superadded to this, are the provisions made in the said articles, for the further preservation of the jurisdiction of those courts in Scotland, after the Union should take place, and the Parliament of Great Britain has hitherto made no encroachments upon their jurisdiction.

By that part of the said 19th article which provides, "That all admiralty juris-

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