wealth derivable from commerce, there were examples in the earliest ages, even before Tyre; but they were very limited in their influence and in their duration. In that olden time, the same word sometimes meant a stranger and an enemy. In Greece, the merchant was a pirate when occasion offered. He was better than this in Rome, but commerce held no high position there. In the Middle Ages, it began to assert its worth and dignity, and the greatest perhaps of the Medici was too proud of his success as a merchant, to permit that any other title should be added to his name. Still more lately, commerce has grown stronger, and with its strength its good influence has grown also. And, not to pause upon illustrations which might be drawn in great numbers from intermediate history, we may well believe that the great commerce, which now bridges the Atlantic, operates powerfully, and we may hope that it will operate successfully, to preserve the peace, this peace so fertile of all good, between the old world and the new. If, in the beginning of mankind, it was much that the family gathered its members into one fold; and if it was a later step which gathered families into states, this may not be the last step. The reasonable, as well as the hopeful, must be permitted to regard it as within the wide circle of possibility, that all states and nations may be gathered into one brotherhood of man. And if this dream, perhaps it may be called should ever become fact, assuredly commerce will be one of the most potent of the instruments by which so great a good shall be wrought. The commerce of the world has reached at this moment an enormous development. It may well seem to us that it can go no further; that it stands on its culminating point. But it is more probable that the future will regard only as the beginning, that which may seem to us a consummation. Assuredly the growth and extension of commerce, its conformity with the essential principles of justice and of reason, and with the needs and the progress of mankind, and, indeed, all its prosperity and all its utility, from the highest to the lowest ground, will be advanced by constantly regarding the laws of commerce as intended to be universal; and, therefore, by respecting what in them is universal, in preference to that which is local and limited, and by giving to all questions that answer which shall make the principle or precedent resulting from it conform most perfectly with those which the nations have already settled by a general usage. That the common law has already done this to a very great degree, and that it has not done this perfectly, has been already intimated. And it may not be out of place to close this sketch of the history of the laws of commerce, with the hope, that it may be one of the effects of the established freedom of this country that we may set such an example of wide and far-reaching sagacity in our shaping of the laws of commerce, that the nations of the world may join with us effectually in making the law merchant the law of the whole world. CHAPTER II. OF THE REGISTRY AND NAVIGATION LAWS. SECTION I. OF THE HISTORY OF THE REGISTRY ACTS. We have seen in the preceding chapter, that the common law of England, from which that of America is derived, was formed while the great mass of valuable property consisted of land, and things fixed to the land. Negotiable choses in action, and all those interests, which are represented and transferred by means of certificates and scrip, were either unknown or little used; and movables, or personal property in possession, constituted but a small portion of the wealth of the country. Hence the law of personal property is of comparatively recent origin; and only of late has it assumed that systematic and scientific form which now belongs to it. Between these two, the law of real property, and the law of personal property, and differing in some particulars from both, is the law of shipping. That a ship is personal property, and not real property, is certain ; but it is a very peculiar kind of property, both in fact and in contemplation of law; and this was true in very ancient systems of law,2 although neither commerce nor its great instrument, the merchant ship, had then reached anything like the importance and magnitude they have now attained. We have said the ship is the great instrument of commerce; and as England, from its insular and otherwise favorable position, found its commerce becoming one of the most important sources of its power and prosperity, the laws we have mentioned in the previous chapter were enacted some centuries ago, providing, with great precision, for the nationality of the ship, and the trustworthiness and preservation of the evidence of that nationality. These 1 Roccus, note xxxviii.; Jacobsen's Sea Laws, 21. See Jacobsen's Sea Laws, ut supra. laws are usually called The Registry and Navigation Laws. It is said that they originated in their present form some two hundred and fifty years ago, in the desire of Spain to preserve for herself the valuable commerce of her colonies in America. In England, they may be regarded as beginning substantially with the 12 Car. 2, c. 18.2 The principal purpose of this and subsequent statutes was to prevent other nations from having the carrying trade between England and her colonies, and between other countries and England; and it was therefore provided, that only British ships should carry merchandise between England and her colonies, and that no merchandise should be brought from foreign countries to the British dominions, except by British vessels, or the vessels of the countries of which the goods imported were the growth. No vessel was to be deemed British, unless wholly built somewhere in the British dominions, excepting only those condemned and sold as prize; and if a British ship became by any sale the property of an alien, it could not afterwards become a British ship again, by resale to a British subject.5 In order to secure to British ships these advantages, and to the British nation this monopoly, an exact and almost severe system of registration was adopted, and has remained in force, with but little change, for nearly two centuries. In 1850, however, by the 12 & 13 Victoria, c. 29, the principle of "free trade" was, par 1 Reeves's History of the Law of Shipping, p. 35. See also 2 Browne's Civil and Admiralty Law, p. 125. The first statute passed for the benefit of navigation was the 42 Ed. 3, which enacted that all ships of England and Gascoigne which came into Gascoigne should be first freighted to bring wines into England before all other. This being, however, of but little importance, the statute of 5 Rich. 2, St. 1, c. 3, which provided that none of the king's subjects should thenceforth ship any merchandise in going out or coming within the realm of England, except in English ships, under penalty of forfeiting the merchandise or the value of it, has been considered as the primary one. Stat. of 6 Rich. 2, c. 8, enacted that this law should only apply, "as long as ships of the said liegeance were to be found able and sufficient in the parts where the merchants happened to dwell." For various subsequent statutes on this subject, prior to Stat. 12 Car. 2, c. 18, see the valuable treatise of Mr. Reeves on the History of the Law of Shipping. tially at least, introduced into the navigation laws; for it was provided, that ships, other than those of British build, may become British ships by register, if wholly owned by British subjects; and all ships may bring to England all merchandise, excepting that the queen (or king) of England, in council, may interpose against the commerce, or against the ships, of any country, such duties, charges, restrictions, or prohibitions, as will put the ships of those countries in British ports on the same footing on which British ships stand in the ports of that country. Later statutes have confirmed, and in some respects extended, the operation of this principle. 1 The principal acts of registry and navigation in this country are those of December 31, 1792, entitled "An act concerning the registering and recording of ships and vessels;" of February 18, 1793, entitled "An act for enrolling and licensing ships or vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries, and for regulating the same; "2 and of March 1, 1817, entitled "An act concerning the navigation of the United States." By this last act, it is provided that no merchandise shall be imported into the United States from any foreign port or place, except in vessels of the United States, or in vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the country, of which the merchandise is the growth or manufacture; or from which such goods, wares, or merchandise can only be, or most usually are, first shipped for transportation; under penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo. And no merchandise whatever shall be imported from port to port of the United States in any foreign ship (other than that imported in such vessel from some foreign port, and which shall not have been unladen), under penalty of forfeiture of the merchandise. But it is provided, also, that this regulation shall not extend to the vessel of any foreign nation which has not a similar regulation in force. In an Appendix to this work, we shall give the principal statutes now in force; and it will be seen that we have not as yet relaxed our navigation laws, so far at least as to permit foreign built ships to become our own, or foreign ships to share in the advantages derived by our own from their nationality, in any degree. 1 Ch. 1, 1 U. S. Stats. at Large, 287. |