Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/216

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184 Courts of Admiralty. [i?65 States to maintain a body of militia, and to have command of it when not employed in the service of the United States; as Great firitain had done in the colonial time. (ii) DISCRIMINATING LEGISLATION. Of discriminating legislation there was much concerning which no serious complaint was made. The subordination of the colonies implied some discrimination against them, according to theories of government prevailing in the eighteenth century and admitted by the colonies. What was understood by "regulation of trade," that is, of external and inter-colonial trade, was the ever-present example. The colonies must not trade with foreign countries, except as permitted by government; they were subject to trade-duties peculiar to them as colonies. But there was somewhere a limit beyond which it was agreed discrimination ought not to go ; to pass that limit was to violate legal right. Where was the limit ? No general answer was given ; no one indeed contended that there was any fixed boundary line; each case was treated as standing more or less by itself. The American contention then, arising out of particular cases, was simply this : assuming, or waiving the question of, the authority of Great Britain, authority had been exercised so as to discriminate unduly against America. Leaving for later consideration questions whether certain complaints belong to this head or to another, and taking up none but admitted cases, the first thing to be noticed must be the legislation touching the jurisdiction of the colonial Courts of Admiralty. Complaint was five-fold. First, it was complained that the revenue jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty in America, which theretofore had been local, had now been extended, for every Court, over the entire coast of the colonies. Secondly, that jurisdiction had been given to the colonial Courts of Admiralty in matters beyond the jurisdiction of the Admiralty in England, namely in matters of the common law ; whereby Americans had, so far, been deprived of the Englishman's right of trial by jury. Thirdly, that, while in England damages could, in case of acquittal, be recovered against officers who seized goods, in America no action could be maintained if the judge in Admiralty would only certify that there had been probable cause for the seizure. Fourthly, that the judge in Admiralty held office at the pleasure of the Crown, instead of during good behaviour as in England. Fifthly, that the judge was paid in fees, a large percentage being payable to him for every condem- nation of goods, much larger than in cases of acquittal. The complaints of political bodies usually took the form of resolutions or declarations, without stated argument. The Stamp Act, and other Acts of Parliament so the Stamp Act Congress declared, in October 1765 "by extending the jurisdiction of the Courts of Admiralty