Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/470

TOWN OP PELHAlrf V. SCEOONEE B. V. WOOLSEÏ. 463 �admiralty may, unless restrained by statute or rule, when its jurisdiction is invoked to enforce a maritime contract, give full force and effect to a lien which, by the local law, bas been made attendant upon, and a security for, the maritime con- tract. Nor would tbere seem to be any difference in the power of the admiralty court to give effect to such lien or security, whether in its terms it is a right in the vessel, anal- ogous to a maritime lien, or a lien or security upon the right, title, and interest of a particular owner of the vessel. I see no reason why an admiralty court should not give effect to such a lien as this common-law lien, as well as to a lien cre- ated by a state statute. In clothing the courts of the United States with jurisdiction of maritime contracts, it cannot bave been intended to leave the suitor without complete enforce- nient of his rights under the contract, in those courts, what- ever those rights may be. But, if there is any difficùlty in that respect, it does not enlarge the jurisdiction saved to the state courtSi Nor can this proceeding in the state court be regarded as. a suit upon the lien, apart from the contract, as upon an independent collateral contract; as, for instance, a mortgage given to secure the contract. A lien is not a col- lateral contract; it is a right in, or claim against, some interest in the subject of the contract, created by the law as an incident of the contract itself. The proceeding in the present case was, in form and substance, an action on the contract, and the remedy or relief given in that action was one unknown to the oommon law. Whatever rights the lien gave the lienor at the common law he can enforce. Thus he can retain possession till the debt is paid. He may reach the title of the owner, perhaps, by an attachment or execution. These are common-law remedies; and, if the common law gave him any other remedy, he is at liberty to pursue it. But no authority is cited for the proposition that the remedy given by this statute, by action and sale under the judgment, is one that was ever open to the lienor at the common law. It is very true that the state statutes heretofore considered and declared unconstitutional have been such as provided a ����